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 her 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 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 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 so 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 one word about 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 truly 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.
The Lazy Person's Guide To Internet Privacy
8 ways to protect yourself, right now
When I was studying in China, the other kids and I always freaked out when we were doing something illicit, like entertaining a Chinese friend or using an electric tea kettle, and the dorm attendant came knocking at the door. Clearly we were being surveilled. Over time, one of the things we grew to appreciate about the United States was our individual privacy. Obviously, since then, what seemed like an inviolable right has been casually thrown away like a pile of old VHS tapes. Where I once cherished my privacy, now I might as well be sprawled naked on the pavement in Times Square surrounded by my open passport, credit cards, bank statements, and diaries.
The Internet is an incredible tool, but it appeals to some of our worst tendencies: sloth, addiction, prurience. We love it because it's free, although of course, we're all paying a huge price. Even after debacles like Yahoo exposing the data of every single one of it's users, three billion in all, or the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandal, how many people deleted any accounts, changed their privacy settings or read the epic and stultifying privacy agreements on social media? In the United States, what business theorist Shoshanna Zuboff terms "surveillance capitalism" was allowed to develop largely unregulated, allowing companies, in particular Google and Facebook, who rely on mining personal data for revenue to become, according to the New York Times, an "emerging duopoly that today controls more than half of the worldwide market in online advertising."
This spring, the European Union enacted the General Data Protection Regulation, a sweeping law that requires companies use the highest possible privacy settings and disclose any type of personal data they are collecting. In June, California followed suit with its own Consumer Internet Privacy Act of 2018, the most robust in the nation. And federal regulations? Remember back in 2017—I know that seems like the Dark Ages with the current breakneck news cycle—when President Trump signed a repeal of an Obama-era law which, under the FCC, would have required broadband companies to get permission from their customers when they were collecting "sensitive data" such as browsing history and geolocation? In late July, the Commerce Department "began holding stakeholder meetings to identify common ground and formulate core, high-level principles on data privacy," according to a senior official speaking to Reuters. In other words, don't hold your breath waiting for federal legislation.
Even California's law doesn't go into effect until 2020. What can you do right now to protect your privacy? Here are some steps you can complete in under an hour that will beef up your computer or phone's security:
1. Turn off location tracking for all of your Apps. You can turn them on selectively when you need them (such as with Uber).
2. Install automatic updates. This way your software will have the latest security features.
3. Cover your webcam with a piece of tape or post it like Mark Zuckerberg does. We know he's an expert on shady ways to collect personal information.
4. Use a password on every computer and gadget, not just your phone. And make it at least six characters long and strong. 123456 or your birthday will simply not do.
5. Put your social media accounts on lockdown. Check your privacy settings. Don't make everything public. Share only within a verifiable group of friends.
6. Avoid using public wifi connections. They can be convenient but the information you transmit is not secure.
7. Don't give away personal information that you don't have to. Phone number? Address? Birthdate? Nope. Facebook does not need to know.
8. Delete your search history regularly. This is critical if you use shared computers such as at school or in a library.
Consumer Reports has a useful list of nearly 70 other steps you can take to protect your security and privacy.
Strange Brew: Does Coffee Cause Cancer?
We love coffee. Does it love you?
In New York City, the Health Department makes restaurants display cleanliness and safety grades in their windows; anything less than an "A" is usually mounted behind a potted fern or hung near ground level. Visiting San Francisco last March, I noticed something similar when I bought my afternoon latte at a Starbucks. Tucked behind the half 'n' half jug and napkin dispensers was a 4x6 inch notification that acrylamide, a chemical byproduct of the roasting process, may cause cancer.
This assertion isn't new. A number of years ago, my husband pushed his morning cup away after a bout of insomnia led him to watch anti-coffee crusader and New Age nutritionist Gary Null preach it's evils on the 2 am segment of a PBS fund drive. While I scoffed at the notion that a drink consumed by millions over centuries was essentially poison, this latest alert, ordered by a judge in California, a state which tends to be on the cutting edge of of regulating toxins, made me wonder.
The warning labels on coffee stem from Prop 65, an 1986 law that that requires companies to inform consumers if their products contain potentially hazardous chemicals. Since California's economy is so far-reaching, the law has had a positive impact on people across the country. It's pushed manufacturers to remove substances like lead and formaldehyde from their formulas. But, according to Nathan A. Schachtman, a product liability defense lawyer and a Columbia Law School lecturer, it's also created "a cottage industry of lawyers roaming around looking for violators."
Recently, California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) recommended that coffee be exempt from the law because the health risks have been overblown. While acrylamide does cause an increase in tumors in rodents who are fed high doses, the agency says that the minuscule amount found in a cup of coffee poses no health risks to humans and that the antioxidants and micro-nutrients in coffee may even be good for you. (FYI: According the the FDA, acrylamide is also found in higher levels in french fries, prunes, some cereals and breads, toasted nuts, and canned olives). A public hearing on the issue was held on Thursday, August 16. Sixty-four percent of American adults drink coffee every morning—can we all breathe a collective sigh of relief?
According to the American Cancer Society, "Coffee drinking is associated with a lower risk of dying from all causes of death." They add the caveat that an international study investigating the link between coffee and cancer said the results were "unclear." However, the same researchers found that drinking coffee was "not a cause of female breast, pancreas, and prostate cancers, [and] may reduce the risk of uterine endometrium and liver cancers." They also noted that drinking coffee is associated with a lower risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. In 2016, the World Health Organization took coffee off it's list of possible carcinogens.
The real risk in drinking coffee is overdoing the caffeine. People with anxiety disorders and those who take certain medications may be advised against drinking coffee by their physicians. Teenagers and pregnant women shouldn't drink more than one cup a day. More than 400 mg of caffeine a day, the amount in four average cups of brewed coffee, can cause stomach aches, irritability, insomnia, tremors, headaches, and other unpleasant side effects. For the rest of us who aren't guzzling buckets of cold brew or making hourly forays to the office percolator, it's fine to continue drinking coffee.
Gut Bacteria and Obesity: Are Probiotics the Key to Weight Loss?
What your diet needs is a little dirt.
It sounds like the beginning of a corny old joke: What do you get when you swap the gut bacteria of a fat mouse and a thin mouse? However, the answer provides a tantalizing clue to solving one of the most dire public health challenges of our time: the obesity epidemic. In a number of studies, scientists have manipulated the intestinal microflora in mice that are obese (A) and lean (B). What they have found is when A gets B's gut bacteria, it becomes a skinny mouse and the opposite is true as well.
Not enough research has been done on humans in long-term trials to definitively prescribe how we should be using probiotics to maintain our healthiest weight, but there are plenty of encouraging findings. In a 2016 meta analysis that studied obese children, researchers found that, "short-term courses of probiotic mixtures containing...14 alive probiotic strains...were shown to reduce significantly total body and visceral adipose tissue weight, together with improvement in insulin sensitivity [a precursor to diabetes]." The same study outlined how probiotics can affect appetite, the ratio of lean body mass to fat, and metabolism. The right probiotics can also improve cholesterol.
Scientists say that to reap the health benefits of these microflora, we need to have a diverse array of strains thriving in our intestines—something that many Americans do not. Speaking with Fitness Magazine, Lee Riley, M.D., a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley points out that the heavy use of antibiotics in the livestock industry over the last couple of decades has taken a toll on the fragile balance in all of our bodies. "The obesity epidemic really took off in the last 20 years in the U.S. So the question is, what happened then? What was a large segment of the population exposed to that could account for this massive weight gain?" He concludes, "Counties with the highest prevalence of obesity are those counties with large concentrated animal feeding operations." The overuse of human antibiotics and anti-bacterial cleaners has also dealt a blow to our systems. Fortunately, there are ways rebuild our individual microbiomes and help the little guys flourish.
Promoting a Healthy Gut
Create a healthy, happy internal environment by eating lots of prebiotics. These are the foods that gut bacteria love to eat. Fiber is especially important so aim to consume twenty to thirty grams a day. Fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and beans are loaded with fiber and have the added benefits of being nutrient-rich and filling you up without a lot of calories. Absolute microflora favorites? Bananas, onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus, artichokes, soybeans, sweet potatoes, and whole-wheat products.
Eat a variety of probiotics. We know that different strains of bacteria are linked to healthy weight, so aim for diversity. Don't rely solely on supplements, they aren't regulated by the F.D.A. for efficacy and safety. If you do want to try a supplement, experts recommend looking for one that contains these strains: Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus brevis, Bifidobacterium lactis (B. animalis), and Bifidobacterium longum. The best, cheapest, and easiest way to ingest probiotics is by simply by eating a range of cultured and fermented foods such as tempeh, yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, miso, and kombucha.
Some experts promote eating more soil based organisms, which can be found in supplements and are purportedly hardier and better able to pass through the acidic stomach to the intestine. Writing for Scientific American, nutritionist Monica Reinagel outlines her steps for restoring a healthy gut post-colonoscopy, which include eating raw vegetables from her own garden that are only lightly rinsed to remove the grit.
Sugar is the enemy.Sugar and refined carbs are absorbed very quickly and essentially starve our intestinal flora. Unhealthy organisms such as fungus and yeast also thrive on sugar. All in all, a dire situation for cultivating the best gut bugs.
While the science of gut bacteria and human health is cutting edge, you still can use common sense to guide your eating habits. What we keep learning over and over is that there is no miracle formula for weight loss that will allow us to consume junk and be slim and healthy. You have heard it a million times before: avoid processed foods, use sugar sparingly, load your plate with fresh vegetables and other whole foods, and eat some yogurt.