It’s Taylor Swift’s “era,” and now, officially, it’s Taylor Swift’s “year.”

TIME Magazine is honoring the pop sensation as its “2023 Person of the Year,” elevating her global influence alongside the likes of President Zelensky, President Biden, and Pope Francis, who were awarded the title in recent years.

In the various covers TIME released on Wednesday, Ms. Swift stares into the audience with steely eyes, flowing hair, and her signature red lip as she affirms that the year 2023, is, indeed, hers. She also brought her cat to the photo shoot.

“She has long commanded constant attention and knows how to use it,” reporter Sam Lansky writes in TIME’s profile of the star. “But this year, something shifted. To discuss her movements felt like discussing politics or the weather — a language spoken so widely it needed no context. She became the main character of the world.”

An international protagonist, indeed, Ms. Swift has become: she beat out eight other finalists for TIME’s designation, including Chinese President Xi and King Charles III, the heads of two of the world’s most powerful economies and militaries. Also in the running for the title were the Hollywood screenwriters and actors whose strikes upended the entertainment industry this year and the highest-grossing film of 2023, “Barbie.”

“Sam Lansky has such a wondrous way with words,” Ms. Swift expressed in a post on X praising the article. She added: “I’m really reflecting on this year, and all the years that led up to it. Can’t say thank you enough times.” 

Ms. Swift’s achievements from the last twelve months alone are hard to track. Her sprawling, billion-dollar Eras tour revived local economies across the world in what analysts deem the “Taylor effect” and is set to become the biggest tour of all time. Her concert movie earned the highest single-day ticket sales in history. 

Academia has even opened its arms to the star. Ms. Swift is now the subject of ten college classes and counting, including one at Harvard. All the while, she has released more than 200 songs from ten studio albums since beginning her career at age 16 and doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon. 

Mr. Lansky asks readers who might be skeptical that Ms. Swift deserves the title she’s been granted: “How many conversations did you have about Taylor Swift this year? How many times did you see a photo of her while scrolling on your phone? Were you one of the people who made a pilgrimage to a city where she played?”

The “Person of the Year” has not always been one to praise. TIME made the controversial decision to call Adolf Hitler its “person of the year” in 1938 while vehemently condemning his rise to power in Europe. Twice it granted the head of the communist party of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin, the same honor. The magazine describes the tradition, which dates back to 1927, as “the annual designation for the person, group or concept that most shaped the headlines, for good or ill.”

This year, “good” won out. “Picking one person who represents the eight billion people on the planet is no easy task,” said TIME’s editor in chief, Sam Jacobs, on NBC Wednesday. “We picked a choice that represents joy. Someone who’s bringing light to the world.”

That this choice is a young, female, singer-songwriter is itself significant. The growing number of women TIME has featured in recent years includes Vice President Harris, Chancellor Merkel, and climate activist Greta Thunberg — who made a name for themselves in political circles, not pop culture. Ms. Swift, though, is able to “transcend borders,” asserts Mr. Jacobs in a statement, and be “both the writer and hero of her own story.”

For the 53 percent of American adults who say they are fans of Ms. Swift, she “uses her voice and her economic power and her presence for social good,” an advocate for gender equity in the workplace at the public policy think tank, New America, Vicki Shabo, tells the Sun. “She’s a pop star, but she’s also a phenomenally important business person, a leader in social and cultural spaces.”

The trifecta of Ms. Swift, Beyonce, and “Barbie” dominated pop culture in 2023, a “moment where gender and gender norms and women’s bodies are so politicized,” says Ms. Shabo. While professors introduce these issues in the classroom, and legislators into Congress, Ms. Swift explores them seamlessly on stage. This “main character,” says Ms. Shabo, offers “a gateway to conversations that are a little bit less charged and more humanizing.” 

On one of the TIME covers, Ms. Swift poses with her Ragdoll cat, Benjamin Button, draped over her soldiers. Invoking her characteristic fusion of humor and humility, she posted on Instagram her reaction to that photograph: “Time Magazine: We’d like to name you Person of the Yea- / Me: Can I bring my cat.”

Yes, she can. It is, after all, her year.