(Image source: Gareth Cattermole for Getty Images)

It’s 11:00pm on a Tuesday night in New Haven and I’m surrounded by over five hundred Taylor Swift fans, most of whom are screaming. Taylor herself is nowhere to be seen. Instead, an enthusiastic DJ in a knit crop top and high blonde ponytail spins Swift’s music, exclusively, from the stage. Sometimes she cuts the sound and everyone belts out the lyrics together. The fans have come from all over New England, some driving close to three hours to be here. A few got sold out of similar events in Boston, Providence, or Hartford. Most are young, under 25, but a solid quarter are in their 30s, or older. They are dressed in a variety of homemade outfits, each a reference to some Swift lyric, music video, or concert ensemble. They gush over each other’s outfits at the bar, coat check, or while snapping photos against the Taylor wall in the corner. They are here for the music, but also for each other. Most will stay until 3am.

This is a Taylor Swift dance party, one of hundreds which happen across the U.S. with surprising regularity. Hosted by a variety of groups and organizations, with no formal connection to Swift herself, they all give the people exactly what they want: A night to dance to Swift’s music, in community, with others who love her just as much.

“We sold out our first event in a venue that holds 500 people, and we sold it out fast,” said Brian Sikes Howe of the initial Swift-only party he threw in Pittsburgh in December 2021. “I’ve been hosting dance parties for nearly ten years, and it was common to maybe see 200 to 250 people for parties that we had been building for years. For a first-time event to double that, right when we announced it, was crazy.”

Within a few weeks he founded The Taylor Party, which was soon hosting six to eight events a weekend, employing a team of five DJs to play in cities across the country for audiences of up to 2,000. This year, The Taylor Party will host nearly 130 Taylor Swift dance parties alone.

Mackenzie Shrieve, a live music event organizer for Happy Clam in New York, had the idea to try out a Taylor Swift dance night for the first time in September 2021, capitalizing on a world returning to nightlife post-quarantine. That turned out to be the day of unexpected flash flooding in New York City, where subways shut down and people were urged to stay indoors.

“Almost every single ticket buyer still showed up,” she said of the event, which had sold out immediately. When they decided to end the night early so people could get home safely, the crowd booed. “That’s when we realized that the need to be in a room with people who love this artist as much as you do, and want to sing at the top of their lungs and release something in that way, was in very high demand.”

Her organization now hosts two Taylor Swift dance parties a month at the Bowery Electric in the West Village, with no sign of slackening interest. They are hardly the only game in town: On any given week in New York City, one could attend a Taylor Swift night in a winery, on a cruise, at a Brooklyn nightclub, or inside a candlelit church with her music played by a string quartet. (And that’s not even considering the Taylor Swift trivia nights). Crowds at these events around the country often consist of repeat customers.

(A Taylor Swift dance party. Image source: @tayswiftnight on Instagram)

No other artist generates this specific type of devotion. Sure, a club might host a Beyoncé dance party the weekend she drops a new album, or organize the occasional night dedicated to Harry Styles, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Adele, or the ‘90s. But these are one-off events, and none have the staying power, or sheer manic energy, of a Taylor Swift dance night.

Why her? Why them? What is going on?

Some will point to the fact that Swift’s discography is huge, and she is constantly releasing new music. This means a club can host two parties a month for 24 months and still keep the playlist varied enough to stay interesting. In the past three years, Swift has released Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights albums, all on the heels of Lover, in addition to her rerecorded albums, and the songs from the vault, providing consistent opportunities for promotional nights. Few artists have enough music to sustain that sort of repeated venture, let alone enough music that is so well known to so many people.

These parties are also distinctly wholesome. Nobody is doing coke in the bathroom at a Taylor Swift dance party. People are handing out friendship bracelets to strangers and dancing like madmen with their friends to “Anti-Hero.” You might get some drinks from the bar, but you don’t go to get wasted or to pick up dates. There is almost no aggressive attention on the dance floor. (It is hard to creepily hit on a girl swaying to “Dear John” alongside hundreds of teary fans.) People tend to dress in fun rather than trendy outfits, and it is hard to feel out of place no matter what you are wearing. At one Bowery Electric party, I stood in the corner with my notebook while multiple people approached me throughout the night, asking if I had come alone and wanted to join their group, or beckoning me to jump into their dance circle. It was the friendliest, most astonishingly communal, dance floor I had ever witnessed in New York. An Ariana Grande or Lady Gaga night might attract fans, but the music won’t be so dramatically distinct from average club fare to make it a novelty all on its own. Taylor Swift nights have a unique niche, in that way.

But more than anything, people come because at some point in their lives, Taylor’s music gave them words for feelings they had. To sing those songs with others who shared that experience, without having to be embarrassed, can be exhilarating.

“Listening to those songs, I remember being on a train commuting to high school and hearing them for the first time, and I still remember those feelings, where I don’t know if I’ll ever feel okay again, but this song is sort of making it okay,” said Alexandra Ofer, 27, a physician assistant in New York with a musical theater background who found solace in Swift’s music after a breakup at 16. “I felt so connected to all of her lyrics because it was exactly how I felt and I wasn’t putting it into those words. And there was something about going to this Taylor Swift night and literally screaming to songs that made me feel like I was 14 or 16. I didn’t expect it. I’m not the person that’s following her religiously, either. But I think it was about that connection and the real love for the music and for all of the memories that are associated with that music, for me.”

Hope Hettrich, 19, a student in Wallingford, Connecticut who has been a dedicated fan since she was seven, when Swift’s music helped her process her parent’s divorce, agreed.

“She made me feel so seen and so heard, from miles and miles away, from songs she wrote with no other person in mind but her own experiences,” she said, recalling how moving it was to catch a wave from Taylor on the Red Tour, and have the singer see, even briefly, how much the music meant to her. “I know it is mildly embarrassing, but the first song I really connected to was Teardrops on My Guitar. In the song she talks about not feeling seen by Drew, and when I was little I thought wow, she gets me. I didn’t have a Drew, but my whole life kind of felt like Drew. I didn’t have a guitar either. But I certainly had tear drops. And the feelings she was describing resonated in the way that I needed them to. I would need to ‘trauma dump’ on Taylor to express to her everything her songs have meant to me.”

(Taylor Swift in concert. Image source: Gareth Cattermole for Getty Images)

The theme of shame, or mild embarrassment, comes up often. Ofer recalled how after that break up at 16, she set her AOL Instant Messenger status to Taylor Swift lyrics, which her ex saw and quickly mocked to his friends. “There was this feeling of embarrassment associated with it, at age 16,” she said, which she felt she could release now that she was 27. “I didn’t even realize I might have been holding that part of me back. And it felt really great to be recognized, and to admit how important this music was to me. And it obviously wasn’t just me, I think everyone was feeling that way too. I think maybe this overwhelming feeling of acceptance and belonging is what felt so special to me.”

Fans would often cover their faces when I asked them how many parties they had attended, or which songs of Swift’s meant something to them. This is part of the appeal, too; nobody has to be embarrassed to love Taylor Swift at a Taylor Swift dance party. It is another reason the casual lurker can stick out. This event is not for them; it is for the people who know what it means to be there.

“We’re all there, in an environment where you’re not judged for the sheer amount of enthusiasm that you have for this one artist,” said Kevin Christopher Robles, 25, who writes for the Jesuit magazine America. “It feels safe to be who you are when you’re there.”

“I always tell them at the beginning, this is not a place to feel judged for dancing crazy or feel weird for feeling all your emotions. We all are fans of this music, and we’ve all had emotional connections to it, so it’s just your night to let that fully out and be fully yourself,” said Allie Robertson, a DJ in San Diego who grew up “a huge Taylor Swift fan” in Alabama, and joined The Taylor Party in January 2023, where she has since spun 11 shows in venues everywhere from Omaha to Chicago to Albuquerque.

As a fan, she knew the community was just as important as the music.

“As much fun as the high energy songs are, it’s always been my dream to have, say, ‘Exile’ play on a Saturday night,” she said, naming one of Swift’s slower and more reflective, sad songs. “It’s something that you wouldn’t ever expect to hear outside of your bedroom, or outside of your car. And you get to bring that same energy into a space of hundreds of people, and all of these people have had this experience in their car or in their bedroom listening to this song, just totally enamored by it, and now they get to do that with a community of hundreds of people behind them.”

Every Taylor Swift party has a few throughlines. At some point, the DJ will play the 10-minute version of “All Too Well,” the expanded release of Taylor’s 2012 breakup anthem. Somebody will invariably request something totally obscure, such as the bonus track of a Christmas album that was only released at Target or something that has technically never been published, and more than half the crowd will know it by heart. There will be friends jumping in unison, and crying, and a few boyfriends milling around, trying their best to be supportive. Though the crowd is predominantly women, men are always significantly represented and integrate completely once they are established to be true fans. Every party will have at least a few groups of male friends who drove an hour or more to be there, rocking out to “Bad Blood” in their plaid shirts and baggy jeans, stoked to have a space where getting lost in your feelings is welcomed. There might be a few parents dotting the sidelines, watching the teenagers they drove. Many people will be wearing white t-shirts from the “22” music video that say “not a lot going on at the moment.” The range of emotions will be large, from joyous and thrilling to devastated and sad.

“I cannot speak to why Taylor’s relationship drama is more relatable than any other pop artist’s relationship drama,” said Jim Gallagher, who DJs the Bowery Electric parties in New York, and has played more than 30 Swift parties. “I can think of plenty of bands that I have been obsessed with at various points. But I know that whatever this is, it is something else. And one thing might be, though I know it is more than this, is that she’s very generous with her fans.”

Among many things, Taylor Swift is known for loving her fans. And fans tend to feel genuinely and truly appreciated by her. It is a fandom uniquely centered around obsession, and loyalty, and the object of that obsession never makes the fans feel too much, or too weird, or too intense for their devotion. This makes it feels more reciprocal. Taylor spends hours and hours hiding “Easter eggs” in her outfits, interviews, and promotional materials, and is known for scrolling fan pages for weeks before extending personal invites to her secret listen parties. You don’t have to feel stupid for loving Taylor Swift, because you know she loves you too. She doesn’t have the time or the capacity to meet every fan, but she does her absolute best to stay connected, and that comes off, as multiple people reflected to me, as “genuine.” She genuinely seems to share in the joy her music brings her fans, and recognize the responsibility she has as an artist to her fanbase. Her music comes from her and it is meant for you. And she works hard. She’s not a cool girl, bringing effortless chic to her every move. She goes big or goes home. Her voice is good, of course, but not unattainable. You can sing to it.

“Sometimes you look out, and you see so many people just having so much genuine fun. There’s no pretentious behavior. There’s no ‘too cool for school,’” said Howe, one of the founders of The Taylor Party. “I think most people that are fans of Taylor Swift music embrace the different levels of sometimes unintentional cringe that has been a part of her music throughout different eras, but everybody’s there for it. It’s very much ‘check your ego at the door.’ Come dance. Have a drink with your friends, if that’s your thing and if not, just dance the whole night anyways. And it is such a generous crowd. It’s really hard to pick the wrong Taylor Swift song in these events.”

***

A few weeks later I’m at a club in Brooklyn, where Swift songs are being spun against, confusingly, a backdrop of mismatched music videos. There are hundreds of people dancing. Two older women sit on wooden benches in the corner, eyes closed as they rock back and forth to “Wildest Dreams.” I speak to pairs of sisters, knots of friends, and two well-dressed Spanish men in their 50s, who sip whiskey in dark suits from an elevated bar. The Swift fandom is majority White, by and large, but there is often a significant Asian minority at these events too, as well as those of Indian and Middle Eastern descent, in addition to Black and Latinx fans. The dance floor is way too loud for conversations tonight, but once fans learn I am a reporter, they shout their favorite Swift lyrics to me, eager to explain what brings them out to these parties again and again.

Like many, most Swift fans found her music as an adolescent, where the songs and lyrics helped them feel seen, understood, not alone. They carried the lines from “Dear John,” “Teardrops on My Guitar,” “All Too Well,” “Enchanted,” “Fifteen,” “Red,” and so many others as they made sense of heartbreak, betrayal, joy, love, family pain, or tragedy. Many grew up alongside Swift, who has been in the public eye since she was 15, finding that in every new life stage there was Swift too, baring her soul and wanting everything – love, fame, friends – from life, even when her hopes were disappointed. She was relatable, familiar, authentic, sincere, even as her career took off. She got older, wiser, more cynical, more forgiving, just as they too matured into these new emotions. Other musicians had songs that soared, but Swift was a best friend, an older sister, a peer. When Swift released two albums during the pandemic, it affirmed for many that whatever was happening in the universe, no matter how bleak, Swift would be there to turn the emotions of the world into songs they could sing.

As I circle the floor, writing down the lyrics that fans cherish most closely, I am reminded of a church service I attended many years ago. The pastor stood up to read Psalm 23, asking those in the congregation to stand whenever she got to a line which had helped them at some point in their lives. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. Some shuffling feet. Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. More people rise. My cup runneth over. Look around, she said, at how many others have been held by these words. It was moving, startling to see a community recognize in one another the power of carrying within themselves lines which could serve as lifeboats. Words which came from elsewhere, and connected them to each other, never alone.

Taylor Swift dance parties are geared towards the devoted, who come to see and be seen by others who love Swift’s music. They understand each other, these fans who have never met before, because if this music means so much to each of them, then they must share some similar emotional orientation to the world. It makes for fast friendships, another part of the appeal. People often arrive on their own and leave making plans to attend another event with someone from the crowd.

“Anybody willing to spend $15 or $20 just to hear Taylor Swift, where she is not even going to be there, they understand the part of you that is so personal, and so criticized by other people from their lack of understanding.” said Hettrich, who regularly attends such events with friends around New England. “We don’t need to have anything else in common, because they get such a huge part of me that not a lot of other people can get.”

“It can be a lot for some people,” said Camryn Duckworth, 23, an actress and preschool teacher who lives on New York City’s Upper West Side, and ran several Taylor Swift fan accounts as a teenager in North Carolina. When her boyfriend offered to go with her to a dance party for her birthday, she gently dissuaded him. “I told him I might enjoy myself more if I wasn’t making sure he was comfortable. Sometimes my friends will say they want to go with me, and I tell them they don’t have to, simply because it is so extreme. As I try to explain to them, you might like Taylor Swift, but these people love Taylor Swift.”

Her friend, Andrew Rumney, 24, agreed.

“It is our emotional connection to the songs and to her as an artist,” he said. “But there’s also something very fun about being in that environment, when you know all the words and everybody else knows all the words, and everybody knows the nuanced things about the songs that non-super fans don’t know. There’s a bond that you have with those people right off the bat, because you both share that passion, and we make friends so easily.”

Duckworth and Rumney attend multiple Swift events a month, for reasons that sound not unlike why people go to church; there is a familiar liturgy that everyone in attendance knows all the words to, and it is nice to be plugged into a message you find meaningful, with others who find importance in the same experiences. It is also a place to make friends. The shared passion of the crowd, the shared knowledge and known etiquette about the rituals – the lines which are always screamed out loud in unison, the dance moves to certain lyrics, the hidden jokes everyone can recite on cue, the enthusiasm for Track Five songs – turn it into a unique, almost sacred, space, where one’s more palpable self, usually muted in public, can be revealed and celebrated.

“At one of my past shows, the bartender working the event came up to me afterwards, and she said, ‘You know, I didn’t really understand the hype of Taylor Swift, but now I understand,’” shared Robertson, the Taylor Party DJ. “People come, and it’s this kind of spiritual experience, where they let out all of their emotions, and they leave feeling lighter than when they walked in. And as an outsider looking in, I think she hit the nail on the head: This is why people come, because you get to let out all your emotions, and then you just leave feeling lighter than when you walked in.”

The urge to sing in community is as old as human civilization. Anthropologists posit that song is uniquely able to hold a large crowd in harmony, and thus keep massive groups from getting rowdy. The ability of sound and rhythm to transform a space has been utilized in religious rituals throughout history, from the ecstatic dance of Sufi Whirling Dervishes to the wordless melodies of Hasidic niggunim and Gregorian chants. We see this urge for public singing emerge time and again in the modern era, when music has become an unprecedently private activity: The Ashbury religious revival that just wrapped up in Kentucky, where students lingered after a Sunday service and stayed for more than two weeks in perpetual song and prayer, drawing over seven thousand souls to a town of two thousand to join them. The sheer popularity of secular spaces like the piano bar Marie’s Crisis, where group of strangers unite in their shared love of musicals, or Disney raves, where participants belt out their favorite Disney songs. A few weeks ago, I sent out an email to a group of friends asking if anyone would be interested if I planned a tisch, a traditional Shabbat gathering for singing songs, and the response was immediate and overwhelming. The appeal is the community, but also the ability to be an emotional self in that community. Like show tunes, or Swift, tisch songs are unapologetically emotional, intense, sincere. For many, it would be embarrassing to wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve in this way in public. But the ritual of these spaces allows many to access an emotional intensity that feels safe, and can be borne.

“I think the word transcendent keeps coming into my head because there’s something about these songs that make you feel something, whatever that is, and I think there’s this recognition, without having to say it in words, that everyone else is feeling how you are,” said Ofer, reflecting on why every time she leaves a Swift dance party, she has the desire to do it again. “I think humans want to feel connected to something, and there’s something really special about feeling that without having to explain why; like, I know everyone in this room feels this connection.”

Shira Telushkin writes on religion, art, culture, and the human search for meaning. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and many other publications. She teaches religion reporting at the Newmark Journalism School at CUNY.