American pop star Taylor Swift, who took the music industry by storm with a phenomenally successful tour, was named Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year on Wednesday, AFP reports. Last year, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi received this title.

Taylor Swift became the person of 2023, TIME magazine announcedPhoto: Handout / AFP / Profimedia

“Much of what (Taylor) Swift achieved in 2023 is difficult to measure (…) She made a commitment to give value to the dreams, feelings and experiences of people, especially women, who felt neglected and undervalued.” – says the magazine. editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs.

The 33-year-old country singer has added another accolade to a long list of hits and records, and her albums or reissues have often reached No. 1 on the US charts, as in the case of “1989 (Taylor Version),” which debuted on the Billboard 200.

Over the past year, she has also made a name for herself by criticizing ticketing giant Ticketmaster over ticketing problems for her The Eras Tour, which forced the platform, often criticized for its monopoly position, to testify before the US Congress.

On the back of the phenomenal success of her tour, the concerts were also broadcast to theaters, and Taylor Swift topped the North American box office the weekend her film was released.

Time notes that the “Shake It Off” and “Cruel Summer” singer is “the first artist to be named Person of the Year for his success as an artist.”

Time’s editor-in-chief notes that the honor often goes to heads of state or titans of industry, but “Taylor Swift has found a way to push boundaries and be a source of light.”

“For building her own world but making room for so many others, for turning her story into a global legend, for bringing joy to a world that desperately needed her, Taylor Swift is Time’s Person of the Year in 2023,” wrote Sam Jacobs. .

On Monday, Time announced the list of finalists: along with Taylor Swift, it includes Russian and Chinese leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, Britain’s King Charles III, US Federal Reserve President Jerome Powell, and the head of OpenAI. , Sam Altman, Hollywood strikes, the prosecutors who indicted Donald Trump and … the Barbie character at the center of this year’s box office success.