Taylor Swift is in her Toronto era, and her fans can teach us a thing or two about joy

This is the church of Taylor Swift on a Saturday night at Ottawa’s Bronson Centre Music Theatre.

Compliments abound. Friendships bracelets are swapped, often with a hug, between strangers. During Fearless, a song Swift has said is about the “fearlessness of falling in love,” hundreds of raised hands make the shape of a heart. The dance hall, awash in sequins, practically hums with feminine positivity.

“It’s like everybody is on ecstasy,” said Aviva Gluss, a 39-year-old change management analyst who has attended four Swift dance parties. “But it’s really just the Taylor high.”

If Swiftiedom were a country, it might arguably be the happiest place on Earth. As Taylor herself has noted in a song or two, Swifties have their share of bad behaviour and blind spots. But they’ve also created something that the science of happiness says is essential for the good life: a safe space for joy, personal connection and meaning.

Next Thursday, Canada becomes the beating heart of Swiftie heaven, when the singer finally arrives in Toronto for six sold-out concerts. An estimated 300,000 fans will travel from across the country and beyond to see Tay Tay – as she is lovingly called – sing for three and half hours through at least 10 studio albums and about 16 costume changes. By the time the tour ends in Vancouver in early December, Swift will have played 129 shows in 53 cities around the world for more than four million people.

The concerts – and the dance nights – offer the kind of joyful synchronicity that has been bringing humans together throughout history. Last summer, about 50,000 people who couldn’t get tickets for the Eras concert in Munich gathered on a hill overlooking the stadium to watch it for free – an event Swift declared “magical.” In Scotland, Swifties danced with such wild abandon at the Edinburgh concert they set off the city’s earthquake monitors.

Sharing a Taylor Swift devotion has bonded families together, and created enduring friendships – the most important happiness intervention of all. In a further boost to well-being, Swifties have closed what psychologists call the “liking gap.” People are often reluctant to talk to strangers because they believe the other person isn’t interested. Yet studies consistently show these small moments of connection make both sides happier, and communities stronger. Swifties demonstrate no such reticence; those friendship bracelets are the ideal stranger-ingratiator.

Even without direct contact, Swiftie happiness is contagious, according to research out of the Centre for Wellbeing, Welfare and Happiness at the Stockholm School of Economics.

In a recent study, researchers measured the happiness of Stockholm residents one month before and after Swift’s Eras concert in May, as well as one week before and after. They found that during those concert-adjacent weeks, people reported higher levels of happiness, felt a greater sense of community and expressed more willingness to help others. The people who had scored tickets to the concert were, naturally, the happiest. But, on average, even those who didn’t attend were found to have experienced a mood boost.

The researchers called this “Happyflation.” Basically, Swiftie love sparked a citywide game of pass the positive energy. As the lead researcher, Micael Dahlen, said in a press release, “people’s joy and happiness can spread to others in multiple steps.”

As a group, Swifties have studied lyrics like academics, organized politically and facilitated acts of kindness. Even so, their fandom – like so many before it – is often deemed frivolous and possibly pathological. (In the 19th century, doctors would have diagnosed Swifties with mania.) The hate always seems especially harsh for a certain kind of fan. The football player weeping over his team’s defeat? He’s invested. The Swiftie who can recite the bridge to Cruel Summer? How silly.

But fandoms haven’t existed forever just because they’re fun. Gayle Stever, a psychologist at Empire State University of New York who has been studying fans for more than three decades, argues that these communities make most members more social, more altruistic, more introspective – and more happy. She meets fans who have travelled widely and made lifelong friends in other countries, all because they really, really like Josh Groban or The Hobbit.

“Our passions,” she says, “are what keeps life from being boring.”

At the Bronson Centre on Saturday night, Hayley Coulas, 23, is dancing on stage, channelling Swift’s 1989 era in a blond wig, sunglasses and shiny skirt, and clearly basking in the applause. This is something, she says, that pre-Swiftie Hayley would never have done.

In an interview, Coulas, who’s studying to be a teacher, recites the Swift lyric that means the most to her: “When you are young, they assume you know nothing.” That someone like Swift could also feel underestimated, “gave me more confidence in myself,” she says. “For me, it’s her ability to be herself. She is not afraid to be goofy.”

In interviews, Swifties such as Gluss describe the music as therapy – a way to brighten a bleak day. They talk about growing up with the songs; Allie Leask McGoey, a 25-year-old executive assistant and singer-songwriter, and the fan in the gold bodysuit at the Ottawa dance, refers to Swift, who is 34, as the “big sister” who offered advice as she navigated her teens.

They deep dive into her lyrics like philosophers: how Swift reflects on her past and future self, the challenges of loving someone, the influence of her social sphere. Her past boyfriends may feature prominently, but these aren’t just “breakup songs,” fans say, insulted at the suggestion. They explore the human condition, especially from a female perspective.

Swifties see the singer as honest and willing to be vulnerable, so when she speaks, they listen. By talking about her own body-image challenges, Swift positively influenced how her fans felt about themselves and their attitudes around healthy eating, found a study published in August by dieticians at the University of Vermont. After the pop star endorsed Kamala Harris for U.S. president in September, more than 400,000 people visited the voter-registration site, vote.gov.

Swift’s music and the example she sets, “gives me the courage to be more me in my everyday life,” says Renick, who, like the singer, qualifies for the title “childless cat lady” – a personification that turned political when then-Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance used it to lament the kind of women that were running the country.

Recently, Renick has been sporting her “cats don’t vote, but their moms do” T-shirt around her staunchly Republican neighbourhood, an act of defiance she credits to Swift’s influence. Swifties highlight the superstar’s feminism, business savvy, work ethic and kindness. When it comes to a female role model, what’s not to love about that?

In her bedroom in Toronto, Shaylen Preble, 13, sits with her mom, Lara McBride, showcasing her Swiftie merch during a Zoom interview. This includes a throw pillow showing the pop star in every one of her “eras,” a well-preserved People magazine with Swift on the cover and a framed poster of the singer’s lyrical affirmation: “It’s okay, life is a tough crowd,” Taylor advises. “You gotta step into the daylight and let it go.”

From the closet, Shaylen’s mom produces a sequin dress and furry purple jacket, a near-replica of the outfit Swift wears when performing Lavender Haze. It’s an option for the Eras concert, although Shaylen remains undecided; she prefers dark and moody Taylor.

At her mom’s prompting, she darts off screen and returns holding a portrait-style picture: Swift with a halo, stylized like Jesus. Shaylen’s grin make clear that she’s in on the joke.

On the other hand, being a Swiftie is a defining quality of her life so far. “It’s the soundtrack of our relationship,” says her mom. There’s the Taylor that played when McBride was pregnant, the songs that Shaylen loved at the age of 3, the hours spent dancing in the living room. (Her father is also a fan.) Shaylen and her mom play livestreams of Eras concerts in the background at home. With her best friend, the teen studies the lyrics for hidden meanings and tracks Swift’s every move.

“If I’m ever going through a situation in life, there’s probably a Taylor Swift song about it,” Shaylen says. Her favourite is a contemplative deep cut titled Maroon, because “it makes you feel everything.”

But to paraphrase Taylor herself, even heaven is breakable if you’re not careful.

Shaylen and her fellow Swifties have what psychologists call a parasocial relationship with Taylor Swift: They know a lot about her, while she doesn’t know them. We all have these kind of connections; elections are decided by them.

But some researchers point out that these one-sided ties, like any relationship taken too far, can distract from other social circles and, in extreme cases, blur the line between admiration and obsession.

Powerful fandoms can also become mob-like and insular. As disillusioned Swifties lament on Reddit, for example, only the truly brave would dare criticize the environmental toll of Tay Tay’s puddle-hopping private jets, or question the ability of a white billionaire to speak with authority about race and privilege.

Swifties are far from the worst fandom out there when it comes to showing an ugly side – the past few years have shown us all what rage-filled fans look like – but they’ve not always used their prominence online for the kindness they espouse. In 2020, when Swift asked fans to support her regaining ownership of her masters from Scooter Braun, some interpreted her request as licence to send death threats to the record executive and his family – an action, which aside from being criminal, clearly runs contrary to the Swiftie ethos. The trolling of Swift’s ex-boyfriends has become so aggressive that last year on stage in Minneapolis, she explicitly asked fans to be kind and gentle online.

But is this behaviour specific to fans? Or, as Stever, the psychologist, asks: “Is that just what happens on social media when people have a certain amount of anonymity and access to somebody famous?”

As writer Holly Swinyard observes in her new book A History of Fans and Fandom, “we can’t seem to escape the urge to put our passions on a pedestal.” But adulation from afar, as Swinyard writes, is an insufficient definition. Talk to enough Swifties, and you quickly learn: Only a hater would underestimate them.

For each Eras concert, Swifties will often co-ordinate a project meant as a thank you to Swift. They’ve lit up their phones in a certain colour and created a landscape of glowing balloons for a particular song. In Canada, for the sixth and last concert in Toronto, Heidi Van Schaik, 44, a manager for an international non-profit, had a different idea: Tay it Forward, a fundraiser for Food Banks Canada that has collected $26,000 and counting. (At Shaylen’s school, the students are now making friendship bracelets as an enticement for donors.)

Van Schaik is a serious Swiftie who has raised three members of the fandom’s next generation. Even her husband is a Swiftie, because if you live with four of them, you may as well join them. The family takes turns writing inspiring lyrics on the bathroom mirror in erasable marker and only Swift’s songs are allowed to be played in Van Schaik’s car. It’s all fun, she says, and brings her closer to her daughters. But she wants her devotion to achieve something.

Charity beyond their own needs, Stever says, has been a goal of every fandom she’s studied and a key part of why people remain members. Doing good deeds improves our sense of well-being, according to a 2023 research paper by the World Happiness Report, and happier people tend to be more altruistic.

On the making-a-difference scale, the Swifties appear to have unprecedented potential. Has any other fandom been so global, vocal and massive, so coveted by some politicians (while feared by others) and so extremely savvy online?

Last year, Swift issued a challenge: If fans could solve 33 million online puzzles, they could see a secret song list. They cracked every one in less than a day. As fans like to say: Swifties could end world hunger if they put their minds to it.

The fandom had already shown it strength after a breakdown on the Ticketmaster website meant many Swifties missed out on face-value Eras tickets. The protest was so fierce that the United States Department of Justice, along with 30 states, eventually sued the ticket company for creating an unlawful monopoly.

“They could become a powerful force in politics,” says Erin Rossiter, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame, who studied how Swifties were still advocating for customer rights many months later, including co-ordinating an international effort to help fans get legitimate concert tickets.

Swifties have helped other Swifties by contributing to GoFundMe campaigns for fans affected by natural disasters or illness. In January, a fan created Swift Steps, a virtual support group for Swifties struggling with addiction; it now has meetings several times a week.

They’ve also demonstrated a nimble generosity for other causes. Last Friday, a Swiftie named Tess Bohne promoted a QR code on her TikTok livestream of an Eras show and raised more than US$30,000 for victims of domestic violence; on Saturday, she raised thousands more for flood victims in Spain.

Swifties clearly see their fandom as more than putting a pop star on a pedestal. And if Swiftie status truly means thinking deeply about your place in the world, practising happiness and sharing it with strangers and learning to raise your voice when necessary – qualities the world surely needs – then what next?

“We are being called to something bigger,” Van Schaik says hopefully. “To make the world, or our little corner of it, a little more joyful.”