The Guardian

Taylor Swift’s fans make the best online sleuths. What can they teach me about social media?

Many celebrity gossip devotees double as internet detectives, reading whole worlds into a ‘favourite’ or unfollow. There’s a lesson in that for all of us
Taylor Swift’s tech-savvy fans seem to know more about the singer than she does. Composite: Jonny Weeks for the Guardian

Taylor Swift’s fans seem to know what she’s up to before she does. How do they do it?

Ever since One Direction went their separate ways, splintering the once-laser focus of their enormous fanbase, the gold standard for internet sleuthing has been set by Taylor Swift’s squad of Swifties.

The woman behind one of her biggest fan accounts on Twitter, with followers of nearly six figures, once told me she had a “pretty good idea” of the pop star’s whereabouts

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Guardian

The Guardian4 min read
The Golden Bachelor’s Older Singletons Have Saved A Franchise
Strange as it may sound, one of the hottest shows on TV this fall has been … an old dating series now catering, for once, to senior citizens. That would be The Golden Bachelor, a new spin-off of America’s pre-eminent dating series in which a 72-year-
The Guardian6 min read
From Kurt To Elvis, JFK And More, What Movies Did Stars See Just Before They Died?
Clad in black and wearing a cheeky-chappie grin, the artist and author Stanley Schtinter resembles Damon Albarn dressed as an undertaker. That suits his new book, Last Movies, which refracts cultural history through the prism of films watched by nota
The Guardian4 min read
Michael Bishop obituary
Michael Bishop, who has died aged 78, wrote many stories that inhabit the borderlands between science fiction and mainstream, drawing on influences as diverse as Ray Bradbury and Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas M Disch and Philip K Dick, Dylan Thomas and T

Related Books & Audiobooks