[Eminent] Interview Reflection

[The following is a reflection regarding the interview portion of my Eminent project. This is NOT a part of my learning centre and to access that post please follow this link https://mygleneagle.sd43.bc.ca/banaa2020/2021/11/30/taylor-swift-eminent-person-learning-centre/]

Regretfully, I have not been able to secure an interview for my Eminent Person project. It was extremely difficult to find a great way to contact her or anybody on her team, and I believe that is intentional and for a good reason. I am sure that if there was some way to send her fan mail or for the public to contact her managers/publicists/team members, they would be flooded with thousands of emails from obsessed fans trying to get in touch with her.

I tried reading through several forums, looking for her publicist and information about who to reach out to or how. The only advice I seemed to get was to make a TikTok or another type of social media post to grab her attention. I did end up making that TikTok and my classmates pitched in to give it exposure, but it did not make it through to her. I am not even sure if she is able to interact with minors online as looking through the posts she has interacted with, she only seems to get in touch with her adult fans. This makes sense considering how sketchy it could seem to talk to younger fans online, even with good intentions. I still wish I had added more hashtags and used other social media platforms. Maybe if I had gotten started earlier and used strategies to get exposure like singing a song I would have been able to make it to her.

I will also admit my internet sleuthing was not quite thorough enough, and after my window for emails had passed I found the name of her former high school, whose gym is even named after her because of her donations. That could have been a good place to look. I also wish I investigated certain leads further even if I had no hope for results, like the contact for her merch store or a demo submission email for her label. There is also a former guitar teacher of hers I read about online, who doesn’t seem to like her but would be an interesting source.

Despite all of these challenges, I thoroughly compensated in my research by watching many, many interviews, speeches, and clips of Taylor Swift talking. I tried to flesh out my understanding of the way she thinks and acts using clips of interviews, short vlogs, and of course, her documentary Miss Americana. While they don’t perfectly substitute for an interview, I found the depth with which I understood her character through these videos increased enough to make up for it.

I think what I’d take away from this experience is that even if you find no reasonable or viable ways to do something, it is best to follow those rabbit holes anyway. Just like when you write a test and never leave the answers blank just in case you are right about something you do not know, sometimes you just have to pursue those trails you thought were hopeless because maybe, maybe something would work out.