#also: i made my dad ask the guy at HMV if i could have the album promotional poster that was hung at the till and HE GAVE IT TO ME!!!!

[messofadream-er]

Hey guys! So I’m new to tumblr and thought it would be cool to tell you all my Swiftie story so far...

So, much like Abigail and Taylor. My best friend Eden, and I, met in school. We were inseparable from day 1. One fateful day, I asked Eden what she was listening to on her IPod Nano (Yes I am that old) and she replied ‘oh, it’s Taylor swift’

‘Who’s Taylor swift?’ I asked.

Little did I know that this would change my life forever. The first song I ever heard from Taylor, was Teardrops on my guitar. I fell in love with her lyrics, her way of painting a picture with words that you could easily envision, and I truly fell down the rabbit hole. I quickly discovered Mean, and then her second album Fearless which became the soundtrack to any situation in my life.

My friendship with Eden blossomed also, for we shared what could only be described as true magic. After finding Taylor, it was easy to ignore the bullying that came with being an outcast in school, that so many, unfortunately- can relate to. Instead of paying attention to cruel rumours, twisted whispers or shouted insults across the classroom, we choose instead to listen to Taylor. The outside, to this day, remains one of my absolute favourites.

Flash forward some years and we’re going into 2011. It’s a new year, we’re about to go up to secondary school (The beginning of high school) and I get a call from my dad.

‘Did you say it was, Taylor Swift, you liked?’

Turns out, a friend who worked in the 02 Arena London, had asked my dad if he wanted spare tickets for the Speak Now tour. Of course, we both jumped at such an amazing opportunity.

Going to the tour turned us from causal fans, into full blown swifties, going to school with 13 sharpied on our hands, singing her songs on the school bus and not caring what anyone else had to say. For we had each other, and Taylor.

When RED came out, we rushed to HMV to get our copies. We played every song on repeat while dancing around our rooms. Our parents looked on, almost befuddled as to why, and how, we loved what they perceived as, a complete stranger.

But Taylor was never a stranger, and every Swiftie will agree. Hearing her songs, feeling those lyrics and applying them to all kinds of things we all go through, well that makes Taylor our friend, a big sister, someone older and wiser, that we all look up to.

After months and months of saving up, the time came for the RED tour to be announced, and tickets to go on sale. To say that we were crazy, would be an understatement. We each took the day off school to sit at the computer, refreshing and refreshing until BAM! they were live. We managed to snatch up 4 tickets, because we were only 14 then and we needed our parents with us.

We were ecstatic. I cried for about a week. We both couldn’t believe we’d got them. The Speak Now tour, although absolutely phenomenal, had happened very quick, almost in a blur. But this time. We could prepare, we could, get Red-y!

So thus began operation ‘Road to Red’. A 6 month mission, with every detail planned to perfection, to bring our A game to the RED tour. We wanted to stand out to Taylor and show her just how much we adore her.

We decided to make a sign that spelled out ‘Love’ because the RED album was romantic and it fit the era completely. At the time, Taylor had 4 albums out. Her self-titled Debut, Fearless, Speak Now and RED. So we assigned an album to each letter of the word, we picked them out in a hat. I got Speak Now and Debut, Eden got Fearless and RED.

We cut out the shape of each letter (with help from my amazing dad) we attached tinsel & fairly lights round the outside and wrote lyrics on every letter, adding our favourite photos for each album also. It took around 3 months to finish each letter.

We then moved onto costumes. What would we wear? We brainstormed for hours and finally agreed on a very elaborate, Taylor-esque outfit. We choose American flag leggings, White tutus (similar to the one she wore while performing Treacherous) glitzy red cowboy boots, home made ‘are you ready’ T-shirts, paired with baseball jackets with ‘13’ ironed on. We also wore red cowboy hats, ‘13’ necklaces, light up belts that spelled ‘RED’, and light up gloves, with each outfit finished with carefully home made Taylor swift badges.

We then worked on our gift basket to Taylor, consisting off a Scottish Fold calendar, London teddy bear, Cat pyjamas, A cat plush wearing a ‘Meredith loves Taylor’ tee, our letters to Taylor and lots of British Tea and candy. (all wrapped up with glittery paper, light up roses and a big bow)

We were truly ready for the best night of our lives. (After convincing both our mums to wear the outfits and carry a letter)

I don’t have many words to describe how I felt as we walked through the 02 being asked for pictures with other fans, or how I felt when Taylor’s guitarist Paul spotted us and waved. Or when we were on the RED tour fan cam not once, not twice, but three times!

Enchanted. That’s the word. For those 2 and a half hours, I was absolutely wonderstruck with Taylor’s talent, the love from all the other swifties and the privilege of just being there.

Unfortunately, a few months after the tour my father passed away from depression. He was my rock, my cheerleader, and Eden and I never would have been able to make the signs and do everything else, without him.

It’s not been easy. It’s been very, very hard. There’s been a lot of changes that come with losing a parent, and a lot of healing that is still in progress but the one thing that has always been my constant, my escape, my way of surviving, is Taylor and her music.

I’ve been lucky enough to go to the 1989 and Reputation tour since. I’ve sang, danced, laughed and cried at each one. I’ve waited up all night for a new song, I’ve decoded every secret message in the album booklets and I’ve now been a Swiftie, for 10 years. (Which is crazy, I still feel 14)

If you are reading this Taylor, I want you to know that I will be forever thankful that I randomly asked my friend what was blaring from her iPod back in 2009, and that you came into my life in a whirlwind of magic. To this day, I turn to you and your beautiful, poignant words to make sense of any emotion I am feeling. When my mum was diagnosed with cancer in 2018, I sang the best day to her, and she now loves you just as much as I do.

Thank you Taylor. I hope one day I’ll be able to say this to you in person. I know so many people whose lives you’ve touched, and I know I’m just one of many, many, stars in your sky. But I hope you know,

I had the time of my life, fighting dragons with you 💫

Love from Grace. ❤️

If you want to follow mine and Eden’s ‘Road to RED’ and see how we made each sign, how we planned everything and footage from the concert please see below!

[jlf23tumble]

Agree so much with your post about the teams and fan engagement ! And love the way you articulated all of that. Although now I definitely am interested in knowing what your notes about the specificity of each team/artist cause I feel like they'd be fascinating to read. Hope you'll post them some day, and thank you for sharing your thoughts with us ! 😊

Awwww, that’s very kind! It’s definitely head canon city, I litcherally have ZERO clue what goes on behind the scenes (and I can’t stress this enough, none of us do), so this’ll look hilariously dated when we find out that blah woof was true all along, lmao (me @ myself, thinking of some random Grimshaw interviews from last fall, oh, bless). Let’s dig in!!

For those of you who just stumbled upon this post, it’s related to the one I made last night about how I think the management teams of all these men (mid-20s means = you’re a man, not a boy) are not, in fact, sabotaging them. They negotiate a lot of tricky interconnected arrangements that none of us are privy, to, plus they’re at least trying to achieve the goals their clients are going for. And they’re doing it—the trick is these goals are highly individual and not 100% sensical (at least given our own view from the afternoon, Arctic Monkeys ref, holllllllah!!!).

In addition, these goals constantly shift, as does the music industry itself—I drive my own self loony when I lurk on blogs that are seemingly broadcasting from 2012, confused by why xx’s team is so “terrible” because they aren’t throwing good money after bad to get on a radio playlist, or why they haven’t announced yy “properly,” as if they’re being paid to worry about this level of shit (which fires me up on about five levels, deep breaths in, deep breaths out). I’m much nosier about the signals we’re getting when we hear them talk in their beautifully media-trained way about their musical interests, when we get some of that sweet, sweet fan service with a Gallagher or a Capaldi, when we get that heads up about who’s attending what concert, stuff like that. These signals don’t necessarily indicate future collaborations, but they DO indicate what kind of image these guys want to have, the kind of music they want the public to associate them with.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself…their personalities and goals at the moment are all so vastly different, and I truly do love seeing how their teams are workin’ it accordingly. Again, please @ god, don’t @ me…opinions, massively unpopular opinions, dead ahead!

* Zayn. My read on Zayn is that he enjoys the creative process, loves writing and singing, digs collabing with people, but he doesn’t seem to give two shits about the biz side (and why should he? that’s called living the dream at this particular point in his career). His website recently added “tour,” which EYEBALL EYEBALL, but he doesn’t seem to be all that interested in putting himself back out on stage or into radio/print/etc. anytime soon, and again, why should he? His numbers are HUGE without pushing himself through the anxiety-provoking churn he endured for four years, so there’s no real drive for him to do any promo if he doesn’t want to (see: the netflix-like binge dump of Icarus Falls, which could be “sabotage,” or it could just be, “fineeeeeeee, here’s some stuff for you, enjoy”). What other artist gifts his fans with gorgeous covers of such a wide variety of songs that indicate he’s more interested in sharing them than selling them. Accordingly, his fan interactions seem fairly pure and not all that promo-y: he has a keen interest in fanart, he’s done some fan pop-ups/listening parties that are pretty low-key and *seemingly* fan-focused, and recently (with zero anything to really promote), he’s been posing for cute pics and chatting with randos on the streets of NYC. I recently read that his mgmt team is no longer with him, but that sort of folds into my feeling that he’s not pursuing anything biz-wise, hence no need to jump through those particular hoops (I think he’s also struggled with a lot of demons, so yeah, why add one more). Could he be adrift? Maybe, but the next guy is the posterman for lack of focus….

* Liam. Honestly, I worry about Liam most of all. His post-1D career seems very much adrift, and I like to joke that he’s giving me that tell-all about the D one sentence at a time, but goddamn, are people listening? The struggles with alcohol, the lack of focus on every level, the reliance on his dad’s career advice (which more clearly reflects his dad’s financial class, background, and history than it does Liam’s), and the overall confusion about look, sound, and direction also flow back directly into his team. I get the feeling that they aren’t sure what to do because LIAM isn’t sure what to do or what he wants, so they follow in his wake. He’s agreeable to a fault, so seeing him at a meet-and-greet at an HMV in Birmingham last week felt like a step back into 2010 for no real reason, just like hearing that he was more or less coerced into full nude photoshoots for an underwear ad (the decisions to say yes to both of those—who’s steering this ship? If it’s Liam, he needs to tell the team his overall goal, so they can plot a course he and his fans can follow; if it’s the team, ditto). Like Niall, Liam’s actually pretty good at the SM game: lots of selfies, snapchat filters, outfits, gym service, twitter interactions. But generally speaking, his promo is confusing, and that’s probably because there isn’t much *to* promote at this point, other than a mix of collabs, clothing endorsements, spon con, horse farms, and an album that’s always on the horizon. This might be tied to the general post-1D jolt they all went through, like a plane coming off autopilot and into the hands of someone who’s just learning how to fly it. Zayn debuted at number one, so his bump wasn’t as harsh, but the others are slowly, steadily finding their footing after taking some time to find themselves and their sound, releasing songs/albums, performing (or in Louis’s case, going through unspeakable tragedy). Liam’s still adrift…and somewhat admittedly, which is kind of telling in its own way. Just know that my nervousness on his behalf ratchets up every time he feels the urge to assure us all that he’s happy.

* Niall. Truly the one following the original 1D template, right down to working with most of the same people but with more of the overall control in his hands instead of a faceless management squad. Of any of them, he seems the most ambitious, the most scientific about the sound he’s after and how he’s gonna get there. His promo is a mix of new and traditional—radio shows, talk shows, podcasts, special events, twitter interactions with fans, twitter interactions with entertaining celebrities—and it’s all hustle hustle hustle, build build build, as if he were a new ingenue instead of coming up hard on solo album number two. He’s explicit in his goals, which is refreshing, but it means he walks a weird line with fans: on one hand, he’s done with their bullshit, get ready to get rekt if you start commenting on his boring food seasoning or home décor. But on the other hand, he fully recognizes how much he needs them, which is why we get so many peeks into his “normal” life (yet zero percent of his actual personal life). It’s also probably why the blatant tweets of the last two days seem so jarring to me (I might be alone on this one, but I’m not a fan of directives in general, and asking me to call radio stations on behalf of a rich white man to become even richer just rubs me the wrong way, same with asking me to stream stuff to get you to number one…you’ve been there, buddy, how about you calm down and build some character at number 51). And speaking of calming down, it does fascinate me that both Niall and Louis namecheck Taylor Swift as someone who gets the whole fandom push/pull thing right, so watching them try to reverse-engineer her secrets is fun. Louis nails it (that hotspot treasure hunt: chef’s kiss), but Niall’s heavy-handed easter egg dump in NTMY, she would never!! I think Niall’s team needs to watch “Calm Down” about five more times before they try that again.

* Louis. I think Louis honestly has an AMAZING team in place, and they’re all clearly on his side, which makes for a refreshing change. Like Niall, he has publicly praised Taylor Swift for how she engages with her fans, but I think he’s missing a key point: she doesn’t let her fans dictate strategy, and I HOPE that’s the case for Louis, too. His old team *was* shit, so yeah, encouraging people to do fan projects to get the word out was a good idea, but turning that spigot off to let a good (paid) team step in and take over has been, uh, challenging. He’s dealt with more than his fair share of personal tragedy, but every time he gets some momentum going, it feels like something bts pushes him back off track, and he tends to keep it private, which only makes his hardest-core fans scream “sabotage.” Rightly so, he’s focusing on his personal life, and rightly so, his team is giving him the space to do that, even when it costs cash money and throws a lot of shit seriously for a loop. It makes my heart soar to see the potential of what his team can do/is doing, how much space he’s being allowed to process what he needs to process. Weirdly, that’s an unpopular opinion, and a lot of people want to indulge in an angst wank fest where Louis’s the victim of a terrible team that won’t DO anything (nevermind the fact that he’s probably ASKED them not to do anything), so they undertake a tremendous amount of performative unpaid labor that ends up being counterproductive on just about every front. Even worse, most of them can’t seem to process the fact that losing your mum is a blow, losing your SISTER is a blow, juggling other siblings or close friends handling some serious demons of their own in the aftermath of all of *that* is a blow, let alone handling your own personal coping mechanisms, nope, they want Louis to release release release, perform perform perform, c’mon, what’s holding him back, he *said* he wanted to release an album this year, there’s “no reason” for a delay, gotta be his shitty team, free him. It drives me ‘round the bend because it’s the same talk from late last year, you know, when we later found out that at least one family member was losing a fight with drug addiction. Louis’s fan engagement/promo is therefore hella fraught: he has to balance LouisTM on twitter (Mr. Donny, he’s hard, mate), his werk IG posts, and his constant edging because nobody can remember or trust that he’s got this, that multiple things are in play. But he also knows his fanbase, knows that it’s resistant to any kind of change, so I hope he pushes through and stays true to what he wants to do. I was really encouraged with his last promo round because he seems to have narrowed in on a something solid, he’s got a plan, and it’s not, “hey mr dj, put my record on,” it’s getting his fans to trust that he and his team know what the fuck they’re doing, and spoiler alert, it ain’t radio, but go ahead and keep pissing off djs by sending angry tweets their way. (Related: why is it so bad to avoid the radio when all of us admit that radio music is garbage? Is it because it’s more about you than him? Much to think about.)

* Harry. My very favorite head canon is that Harry is Jeff’s nightmare client: what was perfection at first because the Azoffs are old-school promo all the way (no SM, baby, gimme that sweet, sweet paper), and that dovetailed nicely with post-1D Harry, but it quickly veered into mulish teeth pulling. Low profile can quickly spin into no profile, and that really doesn’t work too well when you’re trying to sell sell sell, even if your brand is Harry StylesTM. HS1 and Dunkirk in their own separate ways worked VERY hard to push past the still-persistent way the general public views Harry as boybander Harry Styles, or more accurately, former boybander Harry Styles who dated Taylor Swift (if you venture out and ask someone who’s not a fan), but what I love about Harry is that much like Zayn, he doesn’t seem to be too bothered by all that. Sure, he’s ambitious, he wants to challenge himself and do things, but he’s no Niall Horan. He’s put in his time! If he gets a number one, then cool, but he’s not gonna chase it. And this is where Harry’s team really reflects his goals and energy: sure, they want him to do some promo (that “Do” tweet, the entire bit about the fan in Australia and Harry Lambert’s follow, goddddd, I loved it, petty Harry, resigned Jeff), but they clearly aren’t forcing him. He drops a song that makes a HUGE splash, and the follow-up is…liking some tweets and going to a John Mayer concert (not a John Mayer fan, so that wouldn’t be my first choice, but I respond to the zero fucks given about the whole thing). The music industry has changed a LOT in just two years, so it’s kind of cool to see team Harry pivoting a bit, seeing more SM interaction, the kindness generator, etc., but that said, the team takes their cues from him, and he clearly doesn’t want to do a whole promo circuit beyond persons a, b, and c, and magazine R, F, and A. Does it make sense to have Rob Sheffield write a profile about Stevie Nicks-blessed shroom-eater Harry Styles when his new song sounds like the Zarry combo of my dreams? NOPE, but that’s okay, Harry wanted to talk to Rob, so that’s what happened. The new song is more streaming friendly, and thank CHRIST, a lot less crusty white dude stuck in the ‘70s, so I can only hope that the rest of the album is thus, but we shall see! We’ll also see if Harry’s fan engagement shifts any further into the active zone…so far, it’s been “I’m gonna follow some larries, like these fun generator posts, check out a few dads” and staged photo ops with the same familiar faces, but I think he’s dealing with his own major bts issues as well (album delayed at least twice; that entire stalking situation). I still contend the album’s coming in the next few weeks, so it’ll be interesting to see if/how any additional promo rolls out in this new world order post-gryles landscape, how many interviews he’ll do, but I like that there’s a strategy that seems less stodgy…kudos to the new SM team, at least!!

Oh man, that got really long! Hope you enjoyed, and YES, opinions opinions opinions, and they’ll be stupid in about three weeks’ time, thanks for coming to my already dated buzzfeed article