100 Survey Responses | Information and Research Recap

For those who don’t know, I’m in the middle of doing a research study on Taylor Swift and Mythology. I’ve shared a few posts on substack about this topic already, including one on Taylor Swift and Folklore, a look at how Taylor Swift is like the Corn Wolf, and even a few on the research process, like writing a survey.

Speaking of that survey, I’ve recently hit over 100 answers to it. I think, technically, its at like 120-something, and still climbing. This is so exciting! I knew I didn’t want to have any less than 100 in order to try and capture this vast group of people. But, as I continue to get more, I didn’t want to leave this just without any kind of commentary, so I thought I’d do some light analysis on my first 100 responses to whet your appetite a little.

So, without any more ado, let’s get into the first 100 answers!

Demographics

I haven’t done all of the demographics yet. I focused in on some of the aspects which are a little easier to dig out, so I could then start focusing on some of the more complicated stuff later. So far, I’ve broken down the demographics answered by age, gender, and sexual orientation.

First off, age. Despite the very common trope that Swifites are primarily teenage girls, this dynamic did not make up our majority. We did have some teenagers in our answers. Only about 8% of respondents were between 13-18. Only 1% was younger than this. The bulk of respondents were actually between the ages of 26-35, this demographic making up a full 33% of the time.

The female part of the trope is aligning, though. A whopping 82% of responses were from women. And with 96% of these responses also being Cis, the vast majority of our responders, therefore, would settle as a late twenties, early thirties cis woman.

And, a straight cis woman at that. 48% of responses said they were heterosexual. The rest were spread between a variety of LGBT identities, including bisexuality and pansexuality (a combined 28%), and even 7% representing a variety of asexual identities (which, also as an ace person makes me excited). I combined here a few identities within the Asexual spectrum, including grey aces and demisexuals.

Some Taylor Swift Stuff

Alright, now that the demographics stuff is over, let’s chat about some details about Taylor Swift and how you engage with her. Just a quick note: I’m still digging through some of the more complicated and detailed aspects of this, and want to be able to represent these things properly. So I won’t be digging into some of the details just yet, but there are still some fun dynamics that I thought would be worth bringing up.

One of the primary things is just how important storytelling has been in a lot of the responses. Now, this was something I expected to find, but I’m very relieved to see such a large percentage (haven’t done the actual maths on this as I’m more pulling specific examples) mentioning it as part of what draws them to Taylor Swift’s music and/or what they’re favourite thing about her is. Even more people have been including the stories in their music and picture responses, which have been very fun to read.

On a side note, while flipping through some responses, I read where one person said they first starting listening to Taylor Swift after the goat meme video tied to “I Knew You Were Trouble”, which made me nearly spit out coffee. So congrats to you.

But, let’s talk about some fun stats. Of the favourite albums answered, The Tortured Poets Department was the most chosen, with 39 saying this. Second up was Folklore, followed closely by Evermore and Reputation.

The vast majority of respondents also listen through streaming. By a lot. Of the 100 I looked at, 95 said they listen through streaming. I thought this was a nice thing to consider, especially with the recent angst about her various vinyl and CD variants. Only 23 people listened on vinyl, and another 21 on CD.

Before I get some angry thoughts about how a lot of these things add up to over 100, many people answered more than one thing for a lot of these, which is by design. Many listen to music through a multitude of ways, and limiting them to only one response wouldn’t accurately reflect their actual life. Same with favourite albums - people have more than one depending on a variety of circumstances. People hold multitudes, and so that should be reflected in the research.

Speaking of being open to different responses, I did not want to limit the survey only to those who would openly define themselves as a Swiftie. The primary reason for that was hypothesised, and definitely was made clear by the following question of “how would you define a Swiftie”. Several ideas of what a Swiftie is was focused on words which carry heavy negative connotations, like them being parasocial, or crazy. But I’m going to save some of the dynamics of these responses for another newsletter update.

Of our 100 first responses, 88% of them self-identified as a Swiftie. So the vast majority do, but its still a healthy number who don’t. I also asked how many enjoy doing analysis of Taylor Swift’s songs for fun. 76% said yes, while 23% said no.

For those who answered no, you won’t have seen the follow up question. But after answering yes, those who analyse were asked about what dynamics of the songs they deem as most important for the study. These aspects included lyrics, music, production, performance, and Swift’s own life.

There are some interesting dynamics of how people felt about these various dimensions, and how they interplayed with one another. I’m still digging through some of the more detailed comparative aspects of this question, which I’m happy to explore deeper in future posts.

But, that being, said, the median answers actually put the lyrics and the life on separate sides, and so far this is something that I’m seeing a lot - if one is put as most important, the other is the least. Which is, in itself, quite fascinating to me.

If you want to learn more about this project, you can check out my website where there’s a little more information (it needs updating, but I’ll get there). And you can also answer and share my survey here.