TIME Person of the Year 2023 | Taylor Swift
Since 1927, TIME has chosen a Person of the Year, the editors’ assessment of the individual who most shaped the headlines over the previous 12 months, for better or for worse.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - She's been this sort of light in the world this year.
00:06 She's brought so many people together.
00:08 - Thank you for writing music that expresses feelings
00:11 nobody else can express.
00:13 - It's more of like a community too.
00:15 It's not even just her.
00:16 - It just made me feel like I wasn't alone
00:18 and I wasn't crazy for feeling the way that I was feeling.
00:22 - We grew up together.
00:23 We all went through the same things together.
00:25 - It's a massive stadium
00:26 and it feels like you're with her one-on-one.
00:30 (upbeat music)
00:32 - Friendship bracelets are a huge part of the Heiress Tour.
00:36 - These bracelets are so important.
00:38 - Exchanging special handmade friendship bracelets.
00:41 - It all goes back to Taylor's song,
00:43 You're on Your Own Kick.
00:45 (upbeat music)
00:48 - So my friends and I got tickets to the Heiress Tour.
00:53 We had about 200 bracelets made.
00:57 We just couldn't stop.
00:58 We really just had a good time doing it.
01:00 You realize 200 bracelet was way too many
01:06 for us to all bring and trade.
01:09 Kim actually came up with the idea
01:10 to put them on Etsy and sell them.
01:11 I went to bed, woke up the next morning
01:14 and we had over 300 bracelets on order.
01:17 - I was just refreshing the Etsy page
01:19 and I could see the sales going up.
01:20 It was like five, six, seven.
01:22 I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to make
01:24 200 bracelets tomorrow morning.
01:26 And then finally like, okay, we shut it down,
01:28 we shut it down.
01:28 We only have to make like 50.
01:30 And we're like, okay, shh, okay, we can do that.
01:32 - 50 back then was so many.
01:34 We weren't expecting to get much money,
01:36 a couple hundred dollars at the most.
01:38 This morning I ran the numbers
01:39 and we're at $19,000 in sales.
01:43 The Heiress Tour is my Roman empire.
01:45 I think about it all the time, every day.
01:48 I hear a song, that's a great bracelet song.
01:50 That's a good thing to put on a bracelet.
01:52 This business definitely keeps us in touch.
01:54 Two of us live in Massachusetts,
01:55 the other two live in Connecticut.
01:57 Now we have to meet up and trade bracelets,
01:59 drop off, talk almost every single day.
02:02 Keep making more songs, Taylor,
02:03 so we can keep making more bracelets.
02:05 - I went to the Reputation Tour.
02:16 That was right next to a security guard.
02:19 So we struck up a conversation
02:21 and he told me about the gig that he has.
02:24 Couple years later I found some free time,
02:26 so I picked up that job,
02:28 ultimately to try and work a Taylor Swift concert.
02:31 - During a sold out show,
02:33 security guard and self-proclaimed Swifty,
02:35 Calvin Dinker, was working on the floor.
02:37 - I worked kind of right along the edge of her stage.
02:41 After night one, I made little pieces of paper
02:44 that asked the audience if they could take photos of me
02:47 with Taylor Swift in the background and text it to me.
02:51 (upbeat music)
02:53 When she came right behind me,
03:05 there were a ton of fans and I had to look at the fans.
03:08 I saw all of their faces light up when she gets near them.
03:11 And it was just a sight,
03:13 even if I wasn't looking at her on that stage.
03:15 (upbeat music)
03:43 So I think the squeal is mom.
03:46 - They had me kneel up on the stage
03:48 and I see Taylor Swift coming toward me.
03:50 - This has become a special moment
03:52 every night at the Heiress Tour.
03:53 Each night Swift picks a young fan
03:55 to give that hat to during the song 22.
03:59 - Everything I do is handmade
04:01 and it's like a beautiful process
04:02 because it's more intimate, my connection with the hat.
04:06 I was already working with Taylor's wardrobe team
04:11 and they approached me to do the classic fedora
04:14 for the video for 22.
04:16 (upbeat music)
04:19 The connection that she has with her fan in that moment,
04:25 it was so emotional for me to see.
04:28 It was so beautiful.
04:29 Taylor has been empowering so many women with her music
04:34 and to me, I've been a part of that.
04:36 Always I'm trying to empower women with my craftsman
04:39 and be together.
04:40 It's so beautiful to me.
04:42 (upbeat music)
04:44 - I always knew from the moment I wanted to propose,
04:58 I wanted to do it at a Taylor Swift concert.
05:00 I just never thought it would happen.
05:03 You know, I was like, what are the logistics of that?
05:05 How long am I willing to wait?
05:07 - It's a once in a lifetime type of thing.
05:09 I was like, okay, I've got to figure out
05:12 how to go in with the ring.
05:13 One, I need to see where exactly in the lyrics
05:16 I have to nail down to, you know, nail it.
05:19 - All I could think of is what is the line
05:21 I need to go down on one knee on.
05:23 (upbeat music)
05:38 - Two to three weeks before the actual date of the tour.
05:41 Yeah, I never told you this.
05:43 I would play the song whenever I would go to work
05:46 and whenever I would come back just to make sure,
05:49 okay, this is the part that I have to nail down.
05:52 (upbeat music)
05:55 (crowd cheering)
05:58 - You got so many different angles of the proposal.
06:14 I have some of them saved as like Swifty section 326.
06:18 - I mean, I've never seen so much brightness
06:21 and glitter around all in one spot.
06:24 I've never been a part of such a supportive community
06:28 like that.
06:29 - I just knew that when I proposed to Nick,
06:34 I needed Taylor to be a part of it
06:36 because she's been such a momentous,
06:39 impactful person for Nick his whole life.
06:41 And as much as I love her too,
06:45 it just felt like this is something
06:47 I want Nick to remember forever.
06:48 I want everything he loves to be a part of the experience.
06:52 - I love her.
06:53 - She's been there on the hardest days of my life
07:01 and she's been there for the best days of my life.
07:04 (upbeat music)
07:06 - For her to be able to successfully relate
07:15 to so many people in the way that she has, it's amazing.
07:19 (upbeat music)
07:22 [MUSIC]