At 4 p.m. on Oct. 21st, I was in the basement of the Tribeca Target for four hours, waiting for Taylor Swift to show up. The night before, Swift released her highly anticipated 10th studio album, Midnights, and my friends and I were up until well past 3 a.m. listening to the new music together.
Running on a couple hours of sleep and a dream, we dragged ourselves out of bed to buy physical copies of the album at Target, a tradition that most of us had been doing for the past four or five Taylor Swift album releases. While this ritual may seem archaic or cult-ish to the average person, it’s one of many traditions that the Taylor Swift fandom (a.k.a. “Swifties”) participates in every time a new album drops.
New York City is the location of choice for the Swiftie pilgrimage during album release weeks. In the music industry, the first week of an album’s release is critical for chart tracking and record breaking. Artists do interview rounds and promotional events to create buzz around their album to ensure a successful debut. Taylor Swift is typically based in New York for her album releases, often making late night appearances, performing on Good Morning America, surprising fans at pop-up shops and leaving cryptic clues like billboards and murals around the city for fans to find.Â
Because Swift spends these weeks in New York, her fans follow her. Many fly in from other cities, or even countries, to be in New York when new music drops. It’s basically our equivalent of the World Series or the Superbowl. Even if Swift doesn’t end up planning many events for fans to enjoy during a release week, Swifties will flock to Manhattan for the energy and excitement anyway. Since Swifties have such a tight knit online community, many people use release weeks as an excuse to catch up with the friends they’ve made on social media in real life.Â
For Midnights release week, I had the advantage of already living in New York. One of my friends from D.C. came to stay with me and we hosted a small listening party at my apartment for the album. Our plan for the weekend was to meet up with other Swifties in Central Park and go to brunch together, as well as hunt for some signed vinyls at indie record stores and take pictures by the Midnights billboard in Times Square. Of course, we also planned on going to Target to buy the album.
When we arrived at the Tribeca Target on the Friday morning following Midnights’ release, we didn’t plan on being there all day. We were going to buy the album, take some pictures, and head out. However, upon arrival, about 15 people were waiting by the album display with eager expressions. We asked them what they were waiting for, and they admitted that they had heard rumors that Swift would be arriving. At the mention of the potential chance to meet Swift, we decided to linger around for a bit and see if anything happened.
Within 30 minutes, half of Swiftie Twitter also arrived at Target with hopeful looks in their eyes, praying that Swift would make an appearance. The rumors seemed to have spiraled into a bit of a snowball. The Tribeca Target was suddenly overcrowded with Swifties waiting around for no actual reason, hoping with no actual evidence that they’d get to meet Swift. Target employees attempted to organize and control the crowd, but it got misunderstood as attempts to organize us behind barricades for some kind of meet and greet with Swift. Employees wouldn’t confirm or deny if she was coming (because they had no idea if she was), and we wouldn’t leave (because we were holding on to a slim chance that a Twitter rumor would end up being true).
We were all eventually lined up, single file, and weaved through every basement aisle of Target’s electronics and toy department where we were told not to sit down or leave the line, at risk of getting kicked out. At this point, we were all very committed to the idea that Swift was coming, but Target employees were still trying to figure out why we were there in the first place. A line had now formed outside of the store and down the block. As the hours of purgatory ticked slowly by, one Swiftie volunteered to buy everyone snacks and water to keep us sustained and everyone befriended the security guard, Marty. A lot of the people in the basement knew each other already from Twitter, Instagram, or Tumblr, so it was effectively a Swiftie reunion that nobody planned for. We cracked jokes and talked about the album while our hopes of seeing Swift dwindled.
After a painful four hours, bordering on five, we received word from both the NYPD and Swifties outside that Swift would not, in fact, be making an appearance at Target. We all finally dispersed, more grateful to be released from our self-imposed prisons than disappointed, and left to get dinner on Cornelia Street.
As hilarious as this story is, it’s a great example of just how dedicated Swifties are when it comes to an NYC release weekend. We will show up anywhere, by the hundreds, for a shot at supporting Swift and meeting her in person. It is all a bit ridiculous, but it’s fun. We enjoy being in each other’s company and supporting an artist that we love. Besides, it can’t be more ridiculous than grown men rampaging the streets of Philadelphia after the Phillies win a big game. We all have our own ways of showing dedication to our chosen obsessions, teenage girls just often get a sharper edge of criticism for it.
While some might view the Tribeca Target rampage as a blip in an otherwise typical release weekend, myself and many of the other fans trapped down there with me saw it as a perfect example of just how chaotic the whole nature of release weekends are supposed to be. You never have a schedule for a Taylor Swift release weekend, you just show up and get ready for anything, or nothing, to happen.Â
Midnights is undoubtedly great, if the records that have been broken already mean anything, and if nothing else, our Target adventure surely boosted the sales numbers a bit, since nearly all of the hundreds of Swifties gathered there walked out with a CD or a vinyl. The rest of the weekend was spent celebrating the success of Midnights, listening to our new favorite songs, and spending time with friends. Cupcakes were baked, candles were lit, photos were taken, and memories were made.
If you ever find yourself in New York City when a Taylor Swift album is about to drop and you’re looking for something to do, look for the nearest group of people in oversized cardigans, lugging tote bags with Taylor Swift’s face on them. They know how to have a good time