Taylor Swift Is the Queen of the Internet
FOR ANYONE SURPRISED by Taylor Swift’s show of force against Apple over the weekend, hi! Welcome to Earth. More specifically, welcome to the Internet, where Swift benevolently rules over all.
By now you should know that Apple announced that its new music streaming service would come with a three-month free trial following the launch. Yay! But during those first three months of free-for-all promotional service, Apple would be withholding royalties from the artists being streamed. Boo! Obviously this pissed off a lot of people, because that’s an inexplicably shrewd move for a company recently touted as the first ever $700 billion enterprise. Yes, that’s way too close to one trillion dollars for a company to be penny-pinching. Imagine your employer withholding your checks for three months and saying you should be grateful because they still make you come to the office every day. And that your employer has the reserves of the United States Mint.
Anyway, like we said: This played very poorly as a PR move. Indie labels that hadn’t signed deals yet with Apple were already upset about terms of the new service they considered unfair, and this withholding of money for three months just made the situation worse. Smaller artists and their representative bodies were upset, but whatever. Apple does what Apple is going to do, because it’s basically a country. But then on Sunday, Taylor Swift flipped the safety cap on her Big Red Button and launched a Tumblr nuke at Cupertino, at which point we all got to watch as one global superpower got cowed by an even bigger one—in the form a pop star.
The origin of the missile was Swiftopia, a rapidly expanding polis located within the Internet (and possibly a pearlescent cloud-city floating somewhere in the high stratosphere, but this is unconfirmed), presided over by its benevolent Empress, Taylor Swift. On her Tumblr page, Swift posted an entry тιтled “To Apple, With Love,” which would prove to be a deliciously pᴀssive-aggressive gateway into the mogul’s imminent (and intimidatingly polite) evisceration of Apple’s miserly policy. In the post Swift wrote that she would be holding back her mᴀssive album 1989 from Apple Music due to unjust compensation for artists, and the company should be ashamed for forcing her to do so.
“I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company,” Swift wrote, adding that “these are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child. These are the echoed sentiments of every artist, writer and producer in my social circles who are afraid to speak up publicly because we admire and respect Apple so much. We simply do not respect this particular call.”
The goodwill building and empathy rallying was classic Swift, setting her up perfectly for the coup de grace: “I think this could be the platform that gets it right. But I say to Apple with all due respect, it’s not too late to change this policy and change the minds of those in the music industry who will be deeply and gravely affected by this. We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.”
Why Only Swift Could Do This
Swift is all taken care of and she knows it. Her post was about the little guys, the people Swift has made a career speaking for and speaking to over the past 10 years. After a decade of building her empire from the flat ground up to that cloud city we’re sure exists somewhere, Swift knew she had the power to demand compensation on behalf of her less influential peers. And she got it.
If you’re still not convinced about how much pull Swift has as an economic enterprise and cultural power player, consider Apple senior vice president of Internet software and services Eddy Cue’s direct reaction to her letter, which he shared with the Associated Press, “When I woke up this morning and I saw Taylor’s note that she had written, it really solidified that we needed to make a change.” And after he had his morning realization, he personally contacted Swift to talk it out, “She was very pleased to see that we would give her a call right away and have a discussion.”
In return for this overture and subsequent policy reversal, Swift tweeted “I am elated and relieved. Thank you for your words of support today. They listened to us.” That Tweet was subsequently favorited more than 52,000 times, and generated more than 18,000 retweets, which is impressive until you compare it to the 63,000 favorites and 38,000 retweets her initial Tumblr post drummed up. When it comes to Swift, every victory belongs to the team, the #SwiftSquad, and Billboard posted that artists like Jack Antonoff and Christina Perri were “applauding” her open letter to the mighty house of Mac. But for all Swift’s deference to the power of the whole, Taylor Swift is the one who got Apple to change the course of its mᴀssive ship just one week before its landmark streaming endeavor debuts.
The Ruler of the People
Platforms like Twitter and Tumblr and Instagram are huge for burgeoning artists hustling to launch a career. They provide free and utterly customized news delivery and add the bonus of connecting artists directly to their fans. They can build relationships and act as their own PR service. Swift knows this, because she, like hundreds of other musicians, was using MySpace to do grᴀssroots marketing back in the mid-2000s. The level of success Swift has achieved since that time is unfathomable. She’s the 1 percent of the 1 percent, but no matter how high her star rises, Swift continues to utilize the platforms available to her to absolute maximum effect.
Fans fortunate enough to get caught up in her #Taylurking have been rewarded with holiday gift bounties, wedding shower surprises, unannounced home visits and invitations to secret listening sessions. She has repeatedly taken to Instagram and left inspiring messages for fans in their pH๏τo comments. Regardless of how you categorize this activity—laser-focused marketing, boundless altruism, self-serving PR, preternaturally keen business savvy, etc.—it works. It really, really works, because when Swift goes on the offensive and pulls music from popular distribution outlets, her fans don’t balk and decry her for being selfish. They rally and follow her to wherever she takes her goods.
