How Swifties Will Bring Back Media Literacy

by Sophia Nigro

Nowadays, misinformation and conspiracy theories run rampant, especially online. More and more people take what they’re reading at face value, not realizing they’re being deceived. This is due to the fact that media literacy is at an all time low. According to The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), media literacy is “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication.” 

Taylor Swift at the Eras Tour. Photo by: Paolo V via Wikimedia Commons

Basically, instead of only analyzing works in school, like in an English course, we take those skills we learned and apply them to any content we consume on a daily basis. Studies have shown that many people are not learning these skills, and therefore can be more susceptible to conspiracy theories and fake news. It seems that teens are the ones mainly affected by this misinformation, as multiple studies revealed they are more likely to fall for these things compared to adults. It’s incredibly concerning that so many people, especially the younger generation who is our future, cannot correctly analyze information and tell what is real and fake. This is only made worse by the introduction of AI, as now we also have to worry about the spread of fake images and videos. So, how exactly can we combat this media literacy drought? In our desperate time of need, I think we should look to possibly the largest and most influential fanbase in history: the Swifties.

​For those unaware, Swifties is the name for Taylor Swift’s very large and dedicated fanbase. They are a popular and well-known group for a multitude of reasons, one of which being their hunt of Swift’s Easter eggs. No, I don’t mean actual, physical Easter eggs for the holiday. Swift has a tendency to include hidden messages and clues in her songs, music videos, social media posts, etc. for her fans to decode. 

Photo by: Sandor Somkuti, via Wikimedia Commons

While these started off as small clues, like encoding her lyrics with capital letters, they’ve spiraled into major marketing tactics. For example, leading up to the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Google released a game where Swifties were able to solve word puzzles by clicking on a blue vault that popped up after searching her name. Once 33 million puzzles were solved worldwide, Swift and Google dropped the names of the vault tracks for the upcoming album (for reference, vault tracks are unreleased songs from the original album that are finally debuting on the rerelease).

Swift performing her Reputation set at the Eras Tour. Photo by: Paolo V, via Wikimedia Commons

This sleuthing is very common for this fandom. It’s not just for finding vault tracks, but rather anything related to Swift. Whether it’s trying to uncover new songs, a new album, or references to her past relationships, Swifties will analyze absolutely anything Swift releases in order to find a secret message. 

While they’re not always correct, as shown by the Swifties having “predicted” her announcement of Reputation (Taylor’s Version) for over a year with no album in sight, they are constantly using their analytical skills to decode messages. They don’t take anything at face value, but rather look for deeper meaning or truth within Swift’s posts (even if there’s nothing there).

Swifties are also quick to fact check any claims made against her. Many football fans complained over her apparently “taking over” Sunday Night Football, due to how much the cameras seemingly cut to her. However, Swifties couldn’t stand this slander against her, so when football analyst Jason Pauley ended up measuring how often she appeared, Swifties were quick to take to social media to spread the truth. For all the complaints against her, she actually only appeared for 44 seconds, not even taking up a full 1 percent of the entire broadcast. They’re also known to be quite frequent users of the community notes on Twitter. If someone is spreading a false claim about her, such as Trump sharing AI images of her endorsing him, you know the Swifties will be swarming in the community notes to let everyone know the truth.

It’s this kind of dedication that we need in order to help increase media literacy. Swifties are willing to go above and beyond to both uncover the truth of Swift’s Easter eggs and prevent false claims from spreading about her. They do research, they look into the information being given. It’s paid off quite a few times, such as them accurately predicting her announcement of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) at her LA show on August 9, 2023 (8/9 if you will). However, I’m not saying to be as parasocial as this fandom can be. Despite their faults, they are still doing a lot more work than most people are when it comes to analyzing what information they’re being told.

You don’t have to be as dedicated as they are, like going through each individual album and picking through music videos in order to find a single Easter egg. What you can do is be willing to look beyond what you’re being told and try to do some research. Taking just a few minutes out of your day to look up some articles to fact-check a claim you saw on Twitter, or looking closely at an image to see if it’s actually AI, won’t hurt you. 

If we could all be a little bit more like the Swifties and try to analyze and evaluate the information we’re being given, I think we’ll finally be able to bring back our lost media literacy and prevent the spread of misinformation.

Swifties and their friendship bracelets. Photo by: Sally-Marie Böhm, CC BY-SA via Wikimedia Commons