By Kaylee Eiber
Editor-in-Chief
Taylor Swift defines me as a teenage fangirl.
At 9 p.m. on the dot, I sat reloading Swift’s crashed Spotify profile on Oct. 20, 2022 thanks to the “Midnights” album drop. The opening track, Lavender Haze, finally began with a bouncy synth-pop intro that had me immediately bombarding my best friend David Yu with excited messages.
The next morning, however, resulted in him spamming me about the surprise 3 a.m. release, rushing to listen to the seven new bonus tracks together during lunch. This catalyst propelled a butterfly effect of found friendships with all the girls I am proud to call my Swiftie Sophomores.
Seemingly in a blur, I was spending every football game talking about Taylor Swift with Chloe Chui and Rachel Cadavid, later mourning the loss of every surprise song performed at The Eras Tour. I was making TikToks with Julia Yu to Midnights’ Track nine “Bejeweled,” successfully initiating her imminent obsession with Swift.
Rumors of the “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” album drop began to surface and we planned the first of many future listening parties that would end up bringing me closer to some of my current best friends.
What began as our quartet of Sophia Cavaleri, David, Julia and myself grew into our new group chat, assimilating Sofie Sauri and Livia de Paula into our designated friend group through our shared fangirl backgrounds. As Sofie put it, “life is worth living when you have those friends that you text after every Taylor update” and I could not have said it any better.
My Google Calendar dutifully houses “The Tortured Poets Department” album release date of April 19, likely our last listening party before David and I enter college. My younger self is exploding with joy after finally finding girls as consumed with Taylor Swift as she was and still is. All of my Swiftie Sophomores have been the single best friendships I will take with me in and out of high school.