Swifties, this one’s for you. It seems like Taylor Swift's Eras Tour has lasted eons. Yet somehow, there’s always something to talk about. Just thinking about how much she’s accomplished while on tour makes me want to buckle down, lock in, and channel my inner girlboss. But while I can’t even be bothered to cook dinner at home after a long day of work, Taylor is accomplishing milestones most musicians can only dream of. Let’s recap.
The Era’s Tour began in March 2023 with its North American leg. It’s set to go until December 2024, with dates in Europe, Australia, Asia, and South America— spanning 152 shows across five continents.
As the queen of multitasking, Swift hasn’t stopped at just selling out stadiums. Since the Eras tour began, she’s released multiple albums — both new and old — and shaken up the tour setlist with each new release. Her list of new releases started on the first day of tour with “All Of The Girls You Loved Before,” which was quickly followed up by “The Alcott,” a feature on The National’s album — reciprocity for their work on her pandemic era albums, Folklore and Evermore.
She also released Midnights: Late Night Edition (including the iconic collab with Ice Spice), as well as not one but two album re-releases — Speak Now Taylor's Version and 1989 Taylor's Version. As if that wasn’t enough, she announced her latest album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, in a GRAMMY’s acceptance speech. Talk about legendary. Since its release, she’s also been churning out deluxe versions and remixes to keep us on our toes. The Eras Tour was even made into a Blockbuster film that brought Beyonce to its premiere. Star power: confirmed.
But that’s just her work life. Her personal life is just as eventful. She ended her 7-year relationship with Joe Alwyn in April 2023. Then entered into a brief but controversial fling with 1975 frontman Matty Healy. Though it didn’t last long, the relationship was enough to inspire a whole album and catapult her into her current romance with Travis Kelce, aka Amerca’s first nepo boyfriend. Now they’re the American Royal couple — and she somehow had time to fly from tour to his Super Bowl performance.
We all have the same hours in the day as Taylor Swift, but how she uses them will always be a mystery to me. I work eight hours a day and can barely manage a social life. Meanwhile, Taylor literally has it all — though conservatives are turning on her for daring to be a woman in her 30s who’s not married with kids. If that’s not proof that women can’t do anything right, I don’t know what is.
Clearly, she’s working late because she’s a singer. No wonder Taylor Swift became a billionaire months into her tour in October 2023. Her net worth is currently around 1.3 billion dollars, making her the only female musician to become a billionaire from her music.
Other entertainment billionaires like Rihanna, Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Jay-Z, and Kanye West have joined the three-comma club thanks to ventures like clothing brands, beauty products, and other entrepreneurial pursuits. Rihanna has her FENTY Empire. Kim has her award-winning SKIMS. Ye had Yeezy. But Taylor has an unbeatable catalog of publishing.
But Taylor isn’t just different from other Billionaires because of how she earned her money. She’s the Taylor we know and love because of how she spends it. Her rollercoaster Eras Tour is how she’s made much of her fortune. And she’s using it to give back in monumental degrees. From individual donations to investing in local infrastructure, Taylor is literally changing lives on a macro and micro scale. And teaching us what to expect from all billionaires in the process.
The Era’s Tour Bonuses — Talk About Workplace Benefits
First to make headlines were the Eras Tour crew bonuses. While some of us get rewarded with a pizza party or a $10 gift card to Starbucks, Taylor casually dropped $55 million in bonuses for her tour crew. The massive sum was paid out to everyone who makes the Eras Tour go around, from truck drivers to dancers and sound technicians.
In fairness, these bonuses are definitely well-deserved. Taylor’s shows are over three hours long. Imagine dancing for that long — because Swift certainly isn’t the one with the impressive moves — for hundreds of tour dates. Or remembering countless combinations of light cues to go with a setlist that changes daily. Yeah, they’re clocking in. And if my boss had millions to blow, I’d be expecting a comfortable bonus too. But $55 Million? That’s a testament to Swift’s generosity. It's like she's Oprah, but instead of cars, she's giving out life-changing amounts of cash. "You get a bonus! You get a bonus! Everybody gets a bonus!"
It’s similar to how Zendaya gave film equity to every member of the crew that worked on her controversial black-and-white drama, Malcolm & Marie. Filmed in a few days with a bare-bones crew during the peak of the pandemic, the film was Zendaya’s passion project with Sam Levinson, in which she starred alongside John David Washington. Though the film got mixed reviews, it captured the audience’s attention all the same. After all, it was Zendaya — and we’ll watch her in anything. So since the film sold to Netflix for a hefty sum, all the crew members got payouts from the deal on top of their salaries to reward their hard work.
Bonuses and equity payouts are common in many industries, but not entertainment. Even though it’s one of the most lucrative and recognizable American industries, most entertainers don’t make enough to survive. The SAG and WGA strikes last year were proof that there needs to be systemic change in the industry. LA County has even identified show businesses as risk factors for being unhoused — after all, how many stories do we hear of actors who were living in their cars before their big break? And for many, their big break never comes. For even more, they get hired on amazing gigs with giant performers … then go right back to the grind afterward. While individual actions from our favorite stars won’t fix everything, Zendaya and Taylor are providing models for how Hollywood should treat the people who make this town go round.
And in this economy, even a little bit could go a long way. Inflation and the cost of living are not a joke. Especially when, like with many creative careers, you often have to invest in lessons or equipment for your craft. With all this considered, the impact of Swirt’s donations can’t be overstated. Imagine getting a lump sum of cash for dancing to your favorite Taylor Swift tracks? Talk about a dream job.
The Economic Impact of Swift - Swiftonomics, if you will
Like Barbie and Beyonce last year, Swift is still on a tear to boost the economy of the cities she’s in just by traveling there — ad inspiring others to make the trek, too.
The Barbie movie proved that by marketing to women (instead of just making Marvel flops like Madame Web that aren’t really targeted to women at all), the entertainment industry can make giant profits. Barbie fever went beyond the theater. Thanks to a plethora of product collabs, the phenomenon rippled through retail.
Similarly, Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour tour generated an estimated $4.5 billion for the American economy. According to NPR, that’s almost as much as the entire 2008 Olympics earned for Beijing. People were taking money out of their 401ks to pay for Beyonce tickets and the glittery, silver-hues outfits to rock at her shows. Cities even started calling her effect the “Beyonce Bump.”
Swift has the same effect. She’s not just proving her generosity on a micro-scale for the people close to her, she’s having actual, tangible effects on the economy. It's like she's leaving a trail of dollar bills in her wake, and cities are scrambling to catch them like it's a country-pop, capitalist version of musical chairs.
The US Travel Association called it the Taylor Swift Impact after she generated over $5 Billion in just the first 5 months of the Eras Tour. But how does this work? It’s not like Taylor is printing more money at those shows, but it almost is. Her tour dates are pretty much economic steroid shots for local businesses. Hotels are booked solid, restaurants are packed, and let's not even get started on the surge in friendship bracelet supplies.
“Swifties averaged $1,300 of spending in local economies on travel, hotel stays, food, as well as merchandise and costumes,” say the US Travel Association. “That amount of spending is on par with the Super Bowl, but this time it happened on 53 different nights in 20 different locations over the course of five months.” That’s not to say anothing of her effect on the actual Super Bowl and the entire NFL season thanks to her ball-throwing boyfriend.
It's like she's created her own micro-economy, and everyone's invited to the party. And unlike some economic theories that rely on wealth trickling down (spoiler alert: it doesn't), Taylor's wealth is more like a t-shirt cannon or the confetti at her shows — showering everyone around.
Donations that actually do good
Taylor isn’t just stepping into cities and calling it a night. She’s also not just throwing pennies at problems - she's making significant contributions that are changing lives. And more importantly, she's using her platform to encourage her fans to do the same.
She kicked off her tour with quiet donations to food banks in Glendale, Ariz., and Las Vegas ahead of the Eras Tour. Once the tour was in full swing, she continued this practice. In Seattle, she donated to Food Lifeline, a local hunger relief organization. In Santa Clara, she showed some love to Second Harvest of Silicon Valley. And let's not forget about her $100,000 donation to the Hawkins County School Nutrition Program in Tennessee.
She’s been making similar donations overseas. Taylor Swift donated enough money to cover the food bills for an entire year across 11 food banks and & community pantries in Liverpool. Swift also covered 10,800 meals for Cardiff Foodbank and many more banks across the UK and EU. Her impact is so profound that her numbers are doing more to combat issues like hunger than the government.
Can billionaires actually be good?
One thing about me, I’m always ready and willing — knife and fork in hand — to eat the rich. Because fundamentally, can any billionaire really be good? In our late-stage capitalist horror story, the answer is usually no. Look how many of them are supporting the Trump campaign just to get some tax breaks.
But here's the thing - Taylor Swift might just be the exception that proves the rule. She's not perfect, sure. She still flies private jets and probably has a carbon footprint bigger than Bigfoot. But unlike most of the others in her tax bracket, she's not flaunting her wealth like it's a personality trait.
Take a look around. We've got billionaires trying to colonize Mars instead of, I don't know, helping people on Earth. In this context, Taylor's approach is more like Mackenzie Scott’s — Bezos’s ex-wife. She's not trying to escape to another planet - she's trying to make this one better.
And look, I'm not saying we should stop critiquing billionaires or the system that creates them. But she's just setting the bar for what we should expect from all billionaires. She's showing us that our collective power as fans can translate into real-world change. That our love for catchy choruses and bridge drops can somehow, improbably, lead to food banks getting funded and crew members getting life-changing bonuses.
So sorry to my neighbors who hear me belting “Cruel Summer” and “right where you left me” at the top of my lungs (and range). Just know it’s for the greater good.
Global Alliances and America's Rise to Prominence
America didn't come to rule the world over night.
Henry Kissinger is often thought of as the originator of realpolitik–political action dictated by circumstance and pragmatism rather than ideologies or ethics–but this couldn't be further from the truth. From Sun Tzu to Machiavelli to Thomas Hobbes, philosophers and political theorists alike have been advocating for a more practical politics for thousands of years, and their edicts have had profound effects on the way in which global alliances have shifted throughout history. Inasmuch as it takes a powerful nation to create powerful enemies, it's worth examining America's rise to alliance breaker/maker, a rise that's rooted in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
A story:
Just after the American civil war, one of the best known practitioners of realpolitik, Otto Von Bismarck was consolidating power in Prussia and slowly, through a series of small wars, unifying Germany. Later, in 1873, Von Bismarck helped create the Three Emperors League between Russia, Austria-Hungary, and newly-unified Germany (formed following the Franco-Prussian war). Eventually, revolts and civil disorder in the Balkans eroded Russian involvement with the League, and upon its dissolution, Germany and Austria-Hungary formed the Dual Alliance, which was later expanded to include the newly formed Kingdom of Italy. It was then appropriately renamed The Triple Alliance.
As the power vacuum in Europe was being filled by Germany, late 19th century America was still smarting from the Civil War, and it can be assumed, because of French and British involvement, the U.S. was a bit weary of the Western European powers. During this time, the largely amiable relations between Germany and the United States also started to decline. Imperial ambitions and Germany's decision to to build a large fleet of battleships in the 1890s ruined much of the cordiality the two nations shared throughout the previous decades. Coincidentally, this is when the United States and the United Kingdom started becoming chummy, partly due to the fact that Britain sided with the U.S. towards the latter half of the Spanish-American War– once it was clear the Americans were going to win.
A decade later, in 1907, the UK, France, and Russia signed The Triple Entente. This served a few purposes. It rebuilt Anglo-Russian and Franco-Russian relations following the Crimean war, but it also created an alliance by proxy, as the Russian Empire and the United States were on very good standing following the Alaska purchase and the Alliance they formed when suppressing the Boxer Rebellion in China. Seven years later, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia after Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Russia then mobilized to aid Serbia, and slowly but surely the rest of the European powers were drawn in. The Triple Entente and The Triple Alliance were at war. WWI had begun. Unlike their more pugnacious allies, the United States was not interested in getting involved, and avoided joining the war until 1917, when the British intercepted a German message to Mexico, called the Zimmerman Telegram, calling for a German-Mexican military alliance.
Woodrow Wilson and King George V
After the war ended, the victors signed the Treaty of Versailles, and Germany was turned into the Weimar Republic. Around the same time, Benito Mussolini's fascist party took control of Italy. The Treaty of Versailles' harsh conditions combined with the Great Depression, plunged Germany into a period of hyperinflation and civil unrest that eventually gave birth to National Socialism. Italy and Germany, being the two major European fascist states, were natural allies, and together began rapidly developing their militaries to spur economic growth. On the other side of the world, Japan was preparing to invade China, and by the mid-1930s, war looked inevitable to anyone who was paying attention. The U.S. leveled sanctions against their once-ally Japan once Japan's invasion of China began, and within two years the world was in the midst of another World War, this one even more disastrous than the first. With over 80 million war-related deaths, and the devastation of most European nations due to bombing and mass extermination, America was the only country left with enough infrastructure necessary to run the world economy. The economy that was left to America however, wasn't one based on trade or the manufacturing of luxury goods, but war. The old alliances between the U.S., France, and the United Kingdom, stayed in place, but new alliances were only created with countries that could help the U.S. in their chess match with the Soviet Union over control over the new, non-eurocentric world.
The Cold War, between the United States and its NATO allies and the Soviet Union, was marketed as a battle of ideas–capitalism vs communism–but was really just a new type of economy, one in which Soviets and Americans sold mass amounts of weapons to opposing armies throughout the 20th century. Some examples include the Soviet Union arming North Korea during the Korean War and the United States arming the Mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan war. More interesting than the boilerplate on-the-record facts about the Cold War however, is what happened immediately following WWII.
The Nazis, for all the atrocities they committed, were nothing if not efficient. Germany under Hitler was a cult-like, militaristic machine and had the most technologically advanced and well-trained army during WWII. The Germans had rockets capable of reaching space and jet aircraft, technologies that were incredibly valuable to both the Soviet Union and the United States. During Operation: Paperclip, hundreds of Nazi scientists were brought to the United States by the CIA, most famously rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun. But, there was another section of the CIA more interested in Nazi commanders, namely ones in charge of intelligence. Reinhard Gehlen, Nazi Germany's head of intel ligence on the Eastern Front was recruited, along with hundreds of other Nazi officers, to set up a spy network in Germany to keep an eye on the Soviet Union. It was called the Gehlen organization.
Reinhard Gehlen
Stranger however, is the case of Otto Skorzeny, an SS lieutenant colonel, who escaped an allied prison camp and hid in Bavaria, all the while in contact with Gehlen. At Gehlen's and by extension the CIA's behest, Skorzeny was sent to Egypt in 1952 to train the Egyptian army under General Mohamed Naguib. Skorzeny, specializing in commando tactics, also trained Arab and Palestinian volunteers and helped them plan raids into Israel and Gaza. One of the people he trained was none other than Yasser Arafat, the future leader of the PLO. The question that remains is: why would a United States' intelligence organization would be interested in training soldiers in an army that recently declared war on Israel, one of their allies?
Matt Clibanoff is a writer and editor based in New York City who covers music, politics, sports and pop culture. His editorial work can be found in Inked Magazine, Pop Dust, The Liberty Project, and All Things Go. His fiction has been published in Forth Magazine. -- Find Matt at his website and on Twitter: @mattclibanoff