It probably seems like everyone you know has somehow scraped together the funds and bravery needed to score Taylor Swift tickets.
As her popularity reaches a fever pitch and listeners go to extreme lengths to attend the Eras Tour, more and more people have begun to identify not just as Taylor Swift fans, but as zealots devoted to everything surrounding the Tortured Poets Department singer.
Some people read as obvious Swifties, like the girl in your HR department with the glitter eyeliner and friendship bracelets who had a Taylor-themed bachelorette party.
But these days, given that Swift’s army of followers has grown to a size capable of toppling major governments, some fans are harder to spot.
For example, you may look at your neighbor’s screen on a plane and find that a business executive with a signet ring is on his fourth listen of All Too Well (10-minute version) and halfway through his third martini.
Your fitness instructor with the eyebrow piercing is as likely to play Shake It Off as he is Stormzy and your best friend whose into French new-wave cinema and queer theory may just walk down the aisle to an instrumental version of Love Story.
If there’s ever been an artist to transcend cultural boundaries, it’s Taylor Swift. But these observations still don’t answer the question…
Just how many fans does Taylor Swift really have?
First, it’s important to define what it means to be considered a Taylor Swift fan. If we counted every person who has ever listened to her music, even in passing, we would likely have to include a huge percentage of the global population.
But if we just count the super fans who have made Taylor Swift an integral part of their identity, we’ll miss all the casual listeners who turn to the Speak Now singer when they’re going through a breakup or drinking rosé, but otherwise abstain.
The best metric, then, is a combination of statistics.
Streaming stats don’t quite do Taylor Swift justice, as they’re divided by platform and can’t account for radio listens, social media plays, or physical copies of her music (Tortured Poets Department alone has sold 700,000 physical copies).
Still, it’s worth noting that Swift boasts 105million monthly listeners on Spotify (more than the population of the UK) and, according to several sources, is the top listened to artist on Apple Music.
She is also the most streamed Spotify artist of all time globally, the only artist to have received more than 200 and 300 million streams in one day on the streaming service, and the first female act to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
While Apple Music is less transparent about its statistics, according to several sources, Swift is also the top listened to artist on that platform.
While streaming is a good indicator of popularity, social media is almost definitely a better one. It’s safe to say that if someone has decided to follow an artist on social media, they’re almost certainly a fan.
Taylor Swift, who uses her various platforms to promote her music and engage with fans, has 283m followers on Instagram, 32.8m followers on TikTok, and 95.2m followers on X.
While this totals 411m social media followers, there is definitely plenty of crossover between the apps, with many people who follow her on one platform also following her on others.
Luckily, we aren’t the only ones to have asked this question, so let’s really dig into the data.
One study by Morning Consult Survey found that a mind blowing 53% of US adults identify as fans of the artist as of 2023.
But studies differ, and another survey by Statista stats found that a more reasonable 22.56% of US adults identify as Taylor Swift fans.
The survey studied 1,675 respondents above the age of 18 in the United States and concluded that 31% of Americans aged 18 to 29 consider themselves to be Swift fans (15.9m people), while a slightly higher 33% of those aged 30-44 consider themselves fans (20.89m people).
It seems that the 30-44 age group (is there anything more millennial than Taylor Swift?) has the highest percentage of fans, as the numbers decrease from there with only 17% of people aged 45 to 64 (14.16m people) and 13% of those older than 65 identifying as fans (7.28m people).
Added up, and not accounting for any Taylor Swift fans under 18, this means there are approximately 58.23m adult Swifties in the United States.
Even though Swift’s popularity definitely differs between countries, we can apply this percentage to the total global population for a rough idea of her total fanbase.
The current estimated global population is 8,113,690,387 people, 22% of which is 1,832,664,520.
That means that even allowing for Swift’s lower popularity in countries other than the US, it’s almost certainly safe to say that she has close to, if not upwards of, a billion fans.
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