For a megastar approaching the release of her latest blockbuster, Taylor Swift, the human, has been eerily quiet.
Yes, she’s put out four songs and two music videos from “Reputation,” her sixth album, out Friday, and her visage currently adorns a racecar and a promotional fleet of UPS trucks. But Ms. Swift hasn’t given an interview in 18 months, and she has performed in public only once this year, at a pre-Super Bowl event for a corporate partner. (She will be the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend.)
Judging by the relatively reserved rollout for “Reputation,” it’s easy to assume that Ms. Swift is pulling a Beyoncé — communicating only strategically, if at all, and mostly letting the work speak for itself. That is, unless you know where to look.
“The general public has not seen much of Taylor, really, in the last year and a half,” said Caitlin Buckvold, 28, who along with her twin sister, Megan, runs a fan blog dedicated to the singer on Tumblr. “But we’ve seen a lot of Taylor. We interact with her on a daily basis.”
At perhaps the most fraught moment in her storied career — after a tense sexual assault trial and amid ceaseless celebrity beefs and internet dramas that threaten to overwhelm the music — Ms. Swift, 27, has recommitted to engaging with her most faithful followers, known as Swifties, cocooning herself in the vibrant, supportive community they have built on the social-media platform Tumblr.
The artist is far from just an observer: Since taking personal control of her official Tumblr page in 2014, Ms. Swift has “liked” some 27,000 posts, stoking hype for her new songs, registering support for fan theories and lyric interpretations and signaling that she remains an ever-watchful eye to her devoted listeners.
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