Every other day there’s a story about Taylor Swift doing something for a fan. She’s delivery gifts, singing in hospitals, or - in the latest case - donate $50,000 to a fan with leukemia! How does this happen?
Stu and Pat have the story and reaction on Thursday’s radio show. Listen at 1 hour into today's podcast:
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it may contain errors:
PAT: It's Pat and Stu. 877-727-BECK. 877-727-BECK. I'm starting to wonder if Taylor Swift is even human.
STU: That's an interesting question. Do we have enough time to debate that before the end of the program?
PAT: I don't think so. I'm pretty sure she's not even human.
STU: Why do you believe that?
PAT: Look at all the stuff she does. All the good works she does. It's not natural. Okay. Stop it.
STU: It's also not just her. I'm sure she has a team of 20 people just monitoring social media just for these opportunities.
PAT: You think so? So she set up like a team --
STU: She is a brand. I mean, she's a business. She does it right. She knows what she's doing. She's very smart.
PAT: Yeah.
STU: That's not to say -- I think she really does post on Instagram and post on, you know, Facebook and Twitter. But, you know, she's got people.
PAT: She's everywhere.
STU: Yeah, she has people that says this is a good opportunity. Do this one.
PAT: Every time I look, like almost every day, she's driving to somebody's house to drop off gift and money. Then she's off to some hospital to drop off gifts and money. Then she does this thing with the 11-year-old girl in Arizona who had leukemia, and she was diagnosed in late June with an aggressive form of leukemia under orders from her doctors, she was not allowed to leave the hospital. So it forced her to miss Taylor Swift's concert in Phoenix. She was bummed about that. She talked about it online. After she was diagnosed, she put online some video where she chose Taylor Swift's song Bad Blood. I don't know it.
STU: Yeah, it's a big, big hit.
PAT: It's her fight song when she battles cancer. So Taylor Swift or one of her people saw that. And just two days after in fact it was posted, she donated $50,000 to Oakes' online funding campaign. $50,000. And said, to the beautiful and brave Naomi, I'm sorry. You have to miss it. But there will always be more concerts. Let's focus on getting you feeling better. I'm sending you the biggest hugs to you and your family.
STU: She's a little too perfect. I think it was your point.
PAT: She's absolutely perfect.
STU: I mean, look, she's doing a great job.
PAT: Jeez.
STU: And is it really nice? Yes, it really is.
PAT: I'm sick of it. Okay. Stop it with your good works.
STU: That's not where I was going. I think she should continue to do this.
PAT: Stop your good works. You're making the rest of us look bad. Now stop it. I'm getting pissed. Stop it.
STU: Yeah, but is it worth the $50,000 in just advertising? I mean, to put it in a really plain capitalist business sense, man, she looks unbelievable. She will actually -- she will be the face of every product from now until the end of time.
PAT: But you're looking at this in a really cynical way as I am so we're destroying another cool thing. Another really, really good -- a really feel-good story. And we're destroying it with cynicism.
STU: I'm disagreeing. It's not cynical. It's showing that capitalism is good. You know, here she is. She's doing good things with her money, and it winds up paying off. It winds up furthering her career, and it winds up helping others. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing cynical about that. It's great. I'm really -- I'm happy when you see people like this.
PAT: It's great. She's phenomenal though.
STU: Yeah, she really is.
PAT: No matter how she's finding all this stuff and doing all this stuff, it's -- it's an amazing -- it's an amazing effort. And she doesn't have to do any of it. You know, there are 99.9 percent of all artists don't.
STU: Well, that's the thing. She had to make the decision to put 12 people on to monitor social media all the time.
PAT: Right. Because it meant something to her.
STU: It means something to her. She wants to do something that is good. No person physically can catch every single person that misses a concert and has an illness. Look, she's able to do this. She does this weekly, at least. It might be twice a week.
PAT: I think so, yeah.
STU: And every time she does it, she gets glowing media attention, and, you know what, deservedly so. She's doing something good with her money. Thank God. That's great.
PAT: Yeah. She's amazing.
STU: I can't necessarily take her surprise at awards shows anymore. That I can't deal with. You win every award, Taylor. Stop being shocked. I can't take that. But outside of that, she's pretty much the perfect person.
PAT: Is she winning pop awards now? Because she left country.
STU: She wins everything.
PAT: So she won all the country awards. She came over to pop music. And now she's winning awards on those shows too.
STU: Oh, yeah. She's winning everything. And the funny thing, people who used to abandon country for pop used to get wrecked for it.
PAT: Oh, yeah, sellouts.
STU: She absolutely -- this is her biggest CD of all time, of her entire career.
PAT: Is it really?
STU: Oh, yeah, this thing is huge. It's literally saving the music industry. It's the only thing doing anything.
PAT: Well, she was the first artist I think -- we just had the story a while ago. She was the first artist to have three straight multi-platinum records.
STU: It was something like that, I can't remember exactly what it was. It was hard to believe.
PAT: Or maybe it was that she was the first -- the first female artist to have a million plus in the first week. That's what it was.
STU: Three consecutive releases.
PAT: For three consecutive releases, she sold over a million copies. And the thing is, nobody does that anymore.
STU: No, it's not the same.
PAT: The music industry has been decimated by i Tunes. So it's almost over for these artists. Scant few of them are making any money anymore.
STU: Yeah. It's sort of the reverse of the NFL quarterback. Which, back in the day, getting someone over 3,000 yards was a major achievement. Now, multiple people are doing 5,000 yards a year. So the new quarterback records aren't maybe as impressive because all the NFL systems have changed. The reverse is happening with music.
Nobody is selling records like that anymore. Nobody is selling CDs like that anymore. Even with all the downloads and the digital stuff, it doesn't happen anymore. She's still able to do it. Not to mention tours and endorsements and everything else. I mean, it's pretty freaking amazing.
PAT: So she should be able to command whatever she wants to get from her record company when she signs her next deal because she's the only artist that is really keeping everybody afloat right now.
STU: Yeah. And she's done it in a way -- she hasn't, you know, taken her clothes off. And done it in that way.
PAT: No, she's classy. She's a class act.
STU: Yeah. She didn't Miley Cyrus it.
PAT: Thank you. Thank you for that. I'm so glad about that. She does get wrecked for having brief relationships, I guess. When they go wrong. But she gets a lot of songs out of it. So...
STU: She does. Well, that was the situation she had -- look, I don't know. Maybe this isn't a conversation that this audience finds mega relevant. I don't know. But when you talk about a person who is using capitalism to help other people, it's actually a great example of what should be happening.
PAT: Yeah, it is.
STU: And to the point of, not only that, but there's also there's that part of entertainment that obviously goes down the Miley Cyrus road. You get praised for that. I think you flame out a lot faster when you go down that direction. But Taylor Swift had a situation where she released photos of herself in a bikini, which was kind of a big deal at the time because she hadn't done that stuff. The only reason she did it is she apparently got caught in the bikini by paparazzi and she just wanted to beat them to the punch. She knew these pictures were coming out anyway, so she released them on her own. Every single decision she makes seems to work out.
PAT: So savvy. I don't know if it's her or she has some tremendous manager.
STU: Got to be both.
PAT: Wow.
STU: She has to have a great team around her as well. Although, I will say the last time I talked this glowingly about a celebrity was probably Tiger Woods and that didn't work out so well.
Featured Image: DUBLIN, IRELAND - JUNE 29: Taylor Swift brings The 1989 World Tour to 3Arena on June 29, 2015 in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo by Carrie Davenport/Getty Images for TAS)
