Time announces 2023 Person of the Year

The year 2023 has been the year of Swift, between her “Eras Tour,” the release of her film documenting her concerts and her domination of the NFL thanks to her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

This is the second time Swift will appear on the Person of the Year cover. She was featured in 2017 as part of the “Silence Breakers” who spoke out about sexual misconduct, Time said.

This time it is all about Swift — her music, her concerts, her film, her vast fortune and, of course, her romantic life.

Time admits that not all will agree with the decision to name Swift as the Person of the Year, but the writers put it this way:

“If you’re skeptical, consider it: 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? Did you buy a ticket to her concert film? Did you double-tap an Instagram post, or laugh at a tweet, or click on a headline about her? Did you find yourself humming ‘Cruel Summer’ while waiting in line at the grocery store? Did a friend confess that they watched clips of the Eras Tour night after night on TikTok? Or did you?”

The article and three covers are available online and will hit newsstands next week.

The publication started the tradition of naming a Person of the Year in 1927, naming the person or group with the most influence, for better or worse, over 12 months.

Previous selections include American presidents Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump; international leaders such as Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky; tech titans such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and finally groups like “The Silence Breakers,” “The Ebola Fighters,” “The Protestor” and “The Good Samaritans,” CBS News reported.

Swift beat out others who were on the 2023 shortlist announced earlier this week:

Hollywood strikers

Writers and actors walked the picket lines this year, causing television and movie production to come to a halt, Time said. Both the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild both came to agreements and are getting back to work.

Xi Jinping

Chinese President Xi Jinping has already been part of Time’s 100 list, which honors the most influential people worldwide, 10 times. Xi was also a runner-up for Person of the Year in 2017.

Sam Altman

Sam Altman was the founder and CEO of OpenAI, the maker ChatGPT, and he was recently fired and subsequently rehired by the company. Time has honored him twice for his groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence — on the inaugural Time 100 AI list and the 2023 Time 100 list.

Barbie

The year 2023 came coated in Barbie pink. The live-action “Barbie” movie became the highest-grossing film of 2023, earning $1.4 billion.

Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is in its second year. He also held strong against a rebellion by the leader of the mercenary Wagner group, which was ended when a deal was hammered out by Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. The leader of the mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed in a plane crash. Putin has been on Time’s 100 list several times and was the publication’s Person of the Year in 2007.

King Charles III

The year marked the coronation of King Charles III after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in 2022. His mother was named Person of the Year in 1952 when she took the throne.

Jerome Powell

Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell has been trying to curb inflation by raising interest rates slowly so as to not cause a recession. He has been on the Time 100 list twice.

Trump Prosecutors

Former President Donald Trump is facing four separate legal cases in Florida, Georgia, New York and Washington, D.C., and more than 90 charges in those cases alleging election interference, illegally keeping classified documents and falsifying his business records.