Popular culture cycles through collectible crazes, with modern equivalents ranging from NFTs to celebrity-driven merchandise. Taylor Swift exemplifies an enduring human collectible whose popularity continually resists decline. Female celebrities often face backlash and career downturns, yet Swift's appeal has remained resilient. Swift has transformed herself into both person and product, leveraging marketing and fan devotion to monetize vinyl, cassettes, merch, shows, and social-media moments. Dedicated fans' consumer appetite and her steady release of new music and formats have created a sprawling economic ecosystem valued at $1.6 billion, reflecting identities intertwined with consumption.
The answer to the question, "Is this peak Taylor Swift?" has been no for years. The limit, miraculously and perpetually, does not exist. The law of fads is that they fade. Celebrities eventually fall from grace or find themselves on the receiving end of backlash, especially the female ones - just look at Katy Perry's recent woes or Jennifer Lawrence, or even all the way back to Elizabeth Taylor. But not the 35-year-old Swift. Just when you think something finally has to give, it doesn't.
She's commodified everything about herself, with the help of her marketing team and fans. Just like kids wanted the Princess Diana bear, Pinchers the Lobster, and Chocolate the Moose in the '90s, Swifties today have a voracious appetite for her vinyl records, cassettes, merch, shows, and every crumb she leaves on social media. Our identities are so wrapped up in consumerism that to love Taylor Swift is to buy Taylor Swift, or at least, a piece of her, and those little pieces add up.
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