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Looks like Taylor Swift is now in her “person of the year” era.

Time magazine announced Swift as <a href="https://time.com/6342816/person-of-the-year-2023-taylor-swift-choice/" target=_blank>2023’s person of the year</a> on Wednesday, granting her the distinction over a <a href="https://time.com/6341947/person-of-the-year-2023-shortlist/" target=_blank>shortlist</a> of candidates including Barbie, King Charles III and Vladimir Putin. Last year, Ukrainian President <a href="https://apnews.com/article/zelenskyy-ukraine-russia-war-interview-winter-75f1f785b17452fc23819d459e6ab64b" target=_blank>Volodymyr Zelensky</a> won the honor.

“Taylor Swift found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light,” <a href="https://time.com/6342816/person-of-the-year-2023-taylor-swift-choice/" target=_blank>wrote </a>Time’s editor in chief, Sam Jacobs. “Swift is the rare person who is both the writer and hero of her own story.”

Style is where The Washington Post covers happenings on the front lines of culture and what it all means, including the arts, media, social trends, politics and yes, fashion, all told with personality and deep reporting. For more Style stories, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/" target=_blank>click here</a>.

The award caps what’s been a commercially successful year for Swift, who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/13/taylor-swift-eras-tour-money-jobs/" target=_blank>dominated </a>the concert scene with “The Eras Tour” and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2023/10/11/eras-tour-movie-taylor-swift/" target=_blank>in October</a> released a concert film based on the tour<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2023/10/11/eras-tour-movie-taylor-swift/" target=_blank>.</a> The tour turned tragic in mid-November, when sweltering temperatures at a show in Brazil led <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2023/11/18/taylor-swift-fan-dies-brazil-eras-tour/" target=_blank>to hundreds of reported medical incidents and the death of a fan.</a>

Swift also dominated the Billboard charts with songs from her 2022 album <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/21/midnights-taylor-swift-review/" target=_blank>“Midnights”</a> and from previous albums. Her song <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/06/18/taylor-swift-cruel-summer/" target=_blank>“Cruel Summer”</a> from the 2019 album “Lover” topped the Billboard Hot 100 four years after it was released. Swift also released rerecorded versions of her albums “Speak Now” and “1989” with additional tracks.

She also split from longtime partner<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/04/11/taylor-swift-breakup-joe-alwyn/" target=_blank> Joe Alwyn in the spring</a> and faced backlash from fans over a rumored relationship with controversial<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/05/25/taylor-swift-ice-spice-matty-healy-karma/" target=_blank> singer Matt Healy</a>.

Time’s <a href="https://time.com/6342806/person-of-the-year-2023-taylor-swift/" target=_blank>cover story</a> — based on an interview with Swift — is packed with nuggets about Swift’s life from the past year, including details of how she started dating Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs. Swift also spilled some tea about her upcoming rerecording of the 2017 “Reputation” album, as well as her mind-set during a public feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in the mid-2010s.

Here are highlights from The Post’s coverage of Taylor Swift throughout the year, with links to the stories within each excerpt:

For Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, the big screen feels like a tight fit

“With the respective box office successes of ‘Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé’ and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2023/12/05/concert-films-taylor-swift-beyonce-live-music/" target=_blank>‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,’</a> two of civilization’s most famous voices have made the migration from the stadium to the big screen appear pretty much effortless, as if the line between a pop star and a movie star were simply something to be stepped over. As for the rest of us strugglers whose money trees resemble dead houseplants, the pros and cons feel tightly intertwined. …”

What Taylor Swift superfans want you to understand

“In a sunlit bedroom of a cozy stone house nestled among the fall foliage of Georgia’s Chattahoochee River, Molly Swindall sits in a closet. It’s where the 29-year-old flight attendant often retreats when she’s back in her childhood home, admiring and tending to a cramped and overflowing collection of memorabilia that began being assembled in 2006 — the same year she discovered <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-interest/2023/10/20/taylor-swift-fandom-eras-tour/" target=_blank>a budding singer-songwriter named Taylor Swift.</a> …”

Kendrick Brinson

“Swift’s record-shattering Eras Tour is set to be the most lucrative concert run in American history. But the massive production not only provided a jolt of money to sold-out stadiums — it also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/13/taylor-swift-eras-tour-money-jobs/" target=_blank>infused the American economy</a> with a trickle-down flow of cash. …”

They couldn’t get Taylor Swift tickets. So they got jobs at the venues.

“As the Eras Tour winds down in the United States (eight California shows remain before Swift, 33, kicks off the international dates in late August), one small but elite group has emerged triumphant: fans who couldn’t procure or afford tickets, so <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/07/27/taylor-swift-eras-tour-fans-venue-jobs/" target=_blank>they opted to temporarily work or volunteer</a> at the stadiums — and watch the shows free. …”

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Surprised by the Eras Tour’s dominance? You weren’t paying attention.

“Ever since the first concert in March in Glendale, Ariz., the Swifties have been studying every minute of the tour, watching livestreams on TikTok and combing through social media posts. It’s a level of devotion that comes from nearly two decades of Swift’s fan base following her every move, because she makes them feel like they really know her — and more importantly, that she really knows them. Everything Swift has built, going from a teen country songwriting prodigy to one of the biggest pop stars in history at age 33, has led to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/08/17/taylor-swift-eras-tour-last-us-show-2023/" target=_blank>this 3½-hour celebration of her ‘Eras’ each night</a>. And on the last show of this year’s American leg of the tour, the fans were ready. …”

The bonding experience of watching a Taylor Swift concert from a parking lot

“The very difficult odds of scoring tickets to Swift’s 52-date stadium tour are no joke — which is what brought [Daniela] Mello and her fiance to an area outside the gates of Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday night, where they sat on concrete parking barriers near a sign for Lot K. Around them, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2023/05/15/taylor-swift-eras-tour-parking-lot/" target="_blank">thousands more Swift fans swarmed parking lots</a> and closed streets by the stadium, screaming and dancing and singing and sometimes crying along to Swift’s vocals that rang out from the enormous speakers inside the venue. If they couldn’t see the pop megastar, they were certainly going to hear her. …”

Emily Yahr

After woman’s death at Taylor Swift concert, a search for accountability

“Amid the chaos, an early-entry VIP ticket holder named Ana Clara Benevides Machado tried to enjoy herself. A friend remembered how the 23-year-old jumped, sang and cried when she saw Swift — then fainted in the middle of ‘Cruel Summer,’ and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2023/11/25/taylor-swift-brazil-eras-tour-death-investigation/" target=_blank>died of cardiorespiratory arrest at a hospital</a>. She was the only reported death from the show, but firefighters said more than 1,000 others had passed out by the end of the night.

A week later, the international Eras Tour appears to be back on track. Swift has performed more shows in Brazil, including two in the same stadium — even as the country has sought accountability in the wake of the Nov. 17 show, and the Brazilian company that organized the show, Time4Fun, is the subject of government and police investigations. …”

Movie review: Love Taylor Swift or not, ‘The Eras Tour’ is astonishing

“Filmed with multiple cameras during Swift’s engagement at SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2023/10/14/taylor-swift-the-eras-tour-movie-review/" target=_blank>this impressively immersive chronicle</a> has every technological gizmo at its disposal but wisely keeps things simple. After a brief drone shot of the immense arena, director Sam Wrench zooms down to the stage, where dancers appear waving giant, parachute-like wings — a dazzling, lyrical segue into Swift’s triumphant arrival in a crystal-encrusted bodysuit and matching Louboutin boots. …”

Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and a monoculture yearning for romance

“It’s 2023, so this budding romance story has consumed every corner of the internet, sports media, non-sports media, sports betting apps, cable-news segments, memes and text messages from dads to daughters asking, ‘Have you seen this?’ During the Sept. 24 game, Fox announcers gleefully dubbed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-interest/2023/10/02/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-explained/" target=_blank>the Swift-Kelce pairing</a> as ‘the romance that we all need. It feels like it’s right for America.’ …”

A review of ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ (Critic’s Version)

“In the spirit of Taylor Swift rerecording her early discography, I’ve resurrected my take on ‘1989,’ originally published in 2014, with updates in italics.

Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, so here <del>goes</del> we go again.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2023/10/27/1989-taylors-version-review/" target=_blank>Taylor Swift’s ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’</a> — an antiseptic pop album scrubbed of any greasy country music fingerprints — <del>qualifies as</del> is a re-creation of a rare and exquisite dud that ate the entire planet back in 2014. When it’s triumphant, it’s like that Super Bowl Sunday when your team is up 42 points at the half. (Go Chiefs!) When it’s bland, it’s like noshing on empty calories in a dream you won’t remember. Sometimes, somehow, it’s both. …”

The unprecedented weirdness of Taylor Swift

“Taylor Swift is weird. If you think she’s the greatest pop singer to ever exist, that means she’s weird. If you think she’s too boring to be this preposterously famous, that also means she’s weird. Does the intimacy of her world-beating songcraft make you feel as if she has been singing about your life this entire time? Weird. Or maybe you feel profoundly alienated by her fandom-fluffed aura of total infallibility. Yeah, because it’s weird. She’s clearly some kind of genius, and she’s obviously a brighter brand of superstar than most who came before, but it’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2023/07/10/taylor-swift-speak-now/" target=_blank>Swift’s weirdness that accommodates all perspectives</a>. It might be her most essential trait, even though her music feels so normal. And that’s weird, too. …”

Society of Features Journalism for reviews and criticisms, 2021

Utah Society of Professional Journalists for sports reporting, 2020

Top of the Rockies for breaking news reporting, 2018

University of Massachusetts at Amherst, BA in journalism

Herb Scribner is a breaking news reporter for features at The Washington Post. He previously worked at Axios, where he wrote about breaking news in politics, entertainment and sports.

Herb Scribner

Taylor Swift named Time magazine’s person of the year

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Taylor Swift appears on the cover of Time Magazine's 2023 "Person of the Year" 

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