I’m so worn out after a year of political news, that I’m leading with a story about Taylor Swift. Well, Taylor Swift specifically, but also the arc of pop culture over the past decade. “Time and again Swift strategically read and rode the decade’s cultural waves, deciding not just which trends and genres to jump on but, perhaps more importantly, what to pass on. As pop music became feud-centric reality television, there was Taylor; as stan culture transformed the way listeners interacted with performers (and each other), there was Taylor; as artists’ rights in the streaming era entered the conversation, there was Taylor; as politics infiltrated music, there was (sort of, eventually) Taylor.” Pier Dominguez in Buzzfeed: Taylor Swift And The End Of An Era. “Even as reality TV stars like the Kardashians and Real Housewives were figuring out how to create multiplatform storytelling through social media, Swift was already pioneering the strategy in the big pop machine. Yes, she opportunistically used this to shame exes, create fodder for talk shows, and garner magazine covers; and even then, it raised some hackles about the way she was using her power. But it was undeniably compelling theater, and even nonfans were watching.” (While Taylor Swift was arguably the artist of the decade, she definitely wrote some decade defining lyrics: “You are somebody that I don’t know. But you’re takin’ shots at me like it’s Patrón. And I’m just like, damn, it’s 7 AM. Say it in the street, that’s a knock-out. But you say it in a Tweet, that’s a cop-out. And I’m just like, ‘Hey, are you okay?’ … You need to calm down.”)