At 19 years old, Taylor was always on good behavior, intent to be a good role model for her legions of young fans. Not for nothing, she had been tagged the “anti-Britney.” In high school, she had a 4.0 average; when she was home-schooled during her junior and senior years, she finished both years of course work in 12 months. She wouldn’t engage in any remotely dangerous type of physical activity and bit her nails to the quick. She said she had never had a cigarette, and had never tried a drop of alcohol. “I have no interest in drinking. I always want to be responsible for the things I say and do. Also, I would have a problem lying to my parents about that,” she said.
In the media, along with the Jonas Brothers and a gaggle of young Disney stars like her pals Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, she was part of a backlash against the “scandalous”
TMZ culture of earlier in the 2000s decade. Taylor admitted in an interview with
Rolling Stone in 2009 that she was fascinated by girls like Paris Hilton when she was younger but said that she never thought the gossip about these women was true. “You should never judge a person until you know the full story.” Her then
label president told a magazine at the time, “Taylor’s the perfect person for this media moment. She really is the girl next door. She hasn’t been drunk at a party, hasn’t been in any crazy photographs. In this moment of total madness in the culture, Taylor’s fans know they can count on her. I think parents just go, ‘Oh, thank God my kids love Taylor Swift.’”
Taylor took her position as a role model seriously. One of her biggest fears involved “me making a bunch of bad decisions and embarking on a painful, slow, devastating tailspin.” She’d discovered
VH1’s Behind the Music and
E! True Hollywood Story as a child and remained a diligent student of the genre. “Like, if I go to a bar, even if I’m not drinking, who’s to say that a source isn’t going to say that I was doing something I shouldn’t have been doing? So, it’s not only about your own moral compass, but the moral compasses of other people that you don’t know. I overthink everything. I overanalyze everything.”
Self-preservation was one of Taylor’s favorite phrases, and she used it in reference to both her professional and personal lives. From the beginning, she wanted to have a long career, not get tossed away like most teen stars. She was certain she would never let herself get caught up in any shenanigans. “When you lose someone’s trust, it’s lost, and there are a lot of people out there who are counting on me right now.” TV talk show hosts loved Taylor because she possessed such a rare collection of traits. With her cover girl beauty and effervescent personality, she was great on camera, and she brought with her a suitcase full of songs that weren’t ashamed to voice the perspective of a living, breathing and sometimes heartbroken teenager. Regarding her songwriting, she said: