Swift inspires teens with her record breaking wins at the VMA awards

Taylor Swift broke records at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 12. She won nine of the 11 awards she was nominated for. Those awards include Video of the Year, Artist of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop, Best Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Show of the Summer and Album of the Year. 

Swift won the most awards of the night, tying for the most wins in one night at the VMAs. She now has the second most overall VMA wins behind Beyonce. Her hit single “Anti-Hero” added to her record for the most “Video of the Year” awards which is now four wins. 

In accepting her “Song of the Year” award for “Anti-Hero,” Swift said,

“I am so, so happy because this is validating my favorite part of what I get to do. I started writing songs when I was 12, and it always starts with a very isolated emotion like a very a very specific type of insecurity or self-loathing that I feel like I’m the only one who is feeling in that moment, but then when I go out on tour and I’ve got a stadium singing the words back to me, it brings me to this very relaxing feeling of maybe we all have the same issues.” 

Swift is rerecording her first six albums so she can own the rights to the songs she created. Peet freshman Jada Zars said, “She’s gone through a lot of hard things because she has to make all these Taylors versions now because they took her music and she’s trying to get the rights she deserves.”

Swift often refers to when she first started making music and talks about how society looks at women artists and gives them different criticism than men to motivate women to write for themselves and write what makes them feel good.

Referring to Swift’s “Woman of the Decade” speech, Peet freshman Claire Warby said, “She said she was going to write for herself, and I really admire that.” 

Swift covered a lot in her 15-minute speech, but her main points are talking about her journey in the music world and how society was never happy with what she made and how women need to keep making music.