Taylor Swift named Person (and most intriguing person) of the Year

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We are all Swifties now.

On Wednesday, Time magazine named 33-year-old Taylor Swift as its person of the year for 2023. The accolade makes the singer-songwriter the first woman to be named twice since the publication started the practice in 1927.

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In 2017, Swift was one of the magazine’s “silence breakers,” featured on the cover with five other women who were instrumental in the MeToo and Time’s Up movements. More people were profiled inside the magazine’s pages that year.

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This year, Swift was among nine finalists that included King Charles III, world leaders Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Mattel’s Barbie, and two groups: the prosecutors who brought charges against former U.S. president (and 2016 person of the year) Donald Trump; and the Hollywood actors and writers who struck this year.

Not to be outdone, People magazine has also named Swift among its 25 most intriguing people of the year, a less august list but one that also includes a spot on the magazine’s cover.

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Swift topped a list of entertainment and sports figures that included Prince Harry (son of Charles), Margot Robbie (a.k.a. Barbie), Ryan Gosling (a.k.a. Ken), Beyoncé, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, David Beckham, Colman Domingo, Halle Bailey, Pamela Anderson, Ariana Madix, Robert Downey Jr., Jada Pinkett Smith and Adele.

The honours round out a year that saw her Eras tour become the highest-grossing concert tour in a single year, bringing in $900-million. Between that and the filmed version, which quickly became the highest-grossing concert film of all time, Swift has had a measurable effect on the local economy, wherever she happens to be at the time.

But she missed out on yet another potential laurel when Swiftie – the term for one of her fans – missed out on becoming Oxford’s word of the year. It was among four finalists that included prompt (an instruction given to an AI program), situationship (for an informal romantic partnership) and the winner, rizz, short for charisma. Better luck next year, Taylor.

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