Aussies are well and truly in their Taylor Swift era as the pop star’s groundbreaking tour Down Under has been all the buzz of late.
Swiftmania has been at an all-time high this month as the singer recently played to a record-breaking crowd of 288,000 fans across three nights in Melbourne.
Aussie Swifties have traded the friendship bracelets, dressed head to toe in sequins and danced the night away to celebrate the star finally stepping foot on our shores.
While Swift is everywhere right now, what will happen when she leaves Australia?
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Kate Pattison, an expert on Swift and one of the only people in the world doing a fan studies PhD on her at RMIT, says the hype will likely “die down” after the Eras Tour.
“I think once she’s left Australia, for the people who perhaps were more curious and intrigued about the Eras Tour and that coming Down Under, maybe will drop off a little bit,” Pattison tells 9honey Celebrity.
The expert was one of the many who saw Swift take the stage in Melbourne on her first historic night at the MCG.
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Swift is set to play four shows at Accor Stadium in Sydney starting this Friday night before she’s expected to leave the country and take her Eras Tour to Singapore next.
“I don’t think we’re not gonna be seeing a lot of Taylor, but I think perhaps the sort of like every single news outlet, every single person talking about her on a daily level will probably drop down a little bit after she’s left Australia next month,” Pattison says.
Over the Cruel Summer singer’s career, there have been moments where many have speculated the singer had reached peak interest.
After the smashing success of 1989, Swift disappeared from the limelight for a few years before returning with another hit album, Reputation, becoming bigger than ever before.
According to Pattison, she’s come across many discussions of whether the Eras Tour is the peak of Swift’s fandom, but says it’s “hard to tell” if the global hype will decline.
But whether it lasts or not, Swift is undoubtedly the biggest name in music right now.
Since the last time she was in Australia, the singer has released four studio albums and four re-recordings of her past albums Fearless, Red, Speak Now and 1989.
“She’s just accumulated a whole bunch of new fans along the way, along with the ones that she already had to start with,” Pattison says.
From the indie folk sounds on her albums Folklore and Evermore, to the pop beats on Midnights, the expert says Swift “reaches so many different areas and I think that’s why so many people have just been talking about her and invested in what she’s doing.”
Some have even compared Swift’s global takeover to the ’60s frenzy around The Beatles – dubbed Beatlemania – which Pattison says we “haven’t seen in a really long time.”
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“It’s quite rare to have an artist that’s managed to kind of just encompass so many people’s interests and so many different news stories and conversations,” she shares.
In light of her Eras Tour, Swift has truly dominated everything from our social media feeds of concert videos to lighting up landmarks like Flinders Street Station.
But there’s one surprising area the superstar has taken over of late that has launched her online presence to mixed reviews – the NFL.
After launching her relationship with her new Kansas City Chiefs star beau Travis Kelce, Swift has attended 13 NFL games since her first in September 2023.
On the one hand, the singer’s game appearances, where she has been frequently shown onscreen from her VIP suite, has seen Swifties tune into the NFL to support the pop star and purchase number 87 Kelce jerseys in bulk.
But the more negative response to Swift’s venture into sports has been the upset NFL fans – or dads, Brads and Chads as the singer put it herself – who are sick of seeing her.
The criticism even appears to have made its way Down Under amongst Aussie sport fans too.
Just last week, a group of alleged football fans were captured on video outside the MCG booing Melbourne Swifties during the singer’s show.
“I think for part of it it’s just that Taylor is everywhere right now,” Pattison says as to why the singer taking over the NFL has seemed to anger sports diehards so much.
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“I think for some people they’re just sick of seeing her,” the expert considers.
“She kind of embodies this very female, very bright and poppy kind of personality, and I think for some people they don’t like to see that associated with this manly sports game.”
As for the difference between how Swift and sports fans are perceived, Pattison says its ultimately a “gendered thing.”
From cheering to getting emotional, the expert says “sports fans have a very similar way of engaging with the thing that they’re passionate about.
“There’s nothing wrong with any of those behaviours from either side.”