NYU's 2022 Commencement Speaker Taylor Swift

I would now like to introduce you to Jason King Chair and Associate Professor of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at the Tisch School of the Arts, who will introduce the Doctor of Fine Arts candidate. Administrator brett rockhand. Please escort the candidate to the lectern. Taylor Swift. Fiery singer. -composer producer director actress pioneering and influential artist rights advocate and philanthropist you have brought joy and resolve to your hundreds of millions of fans around the world one of the best-selling music artists in history you have crossed genres demographics age groups and frontiers of all kinds to touch lives around the world with nine original studio albums two re-recorded studio albums five extended plays three live albums and fourteen compilations you have sold more than 100 million album units winning awards and honors in every category you have used the extraordinary platform you won to galvanize support for the equality law to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and have spoken out and supported initiatives to protect women and girls from harassment and assault sexual. you have donated significantly to flood and tornado victims for cancer research children's literacy programs and public education you have bravely challenged the exploitation of musical artists and have successfully defended their right to be compensated for their work

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You are a role model around the world for your unprecedented talent and achievements, your fierce advocacy for the protection of those facing discrimination, and your commitment to speaking forcefully, eloquently, and effectively on behalf of all artists by virtue of the authority you has been conferred upon me.

I am pleased to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Fine Arts honoris causa. I am now pleased to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Fine Arts honoris causa. present

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who will respond on behalf of the honorary title winners hello, I'm taylor the last time I was in a stadium this size I was dancing in heels and wearing a sparkly leotard this outfit is much more comfortable I would like to say a lot thank you to nyu board chair bill berkley and all trustees and board members, nyu president andrew hamilton, provost catherine fleming, and the faculty and alumni here who have made this possible day.

I feel very proud to share this day. with my fellow honorees susan hockfield and félix matos rodriguez who honor me with the way they improve our world with their work, and for me, I'm 90 percent sure that the main reason I'm here is because I have a song called 22. and let's just say I'm thrilled to be here with you today as we celebrate and graduate the class of

2022

from New York University. None of us here today have done it alone. Each of us is a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us. We believed in our future those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn't easy to listen to those who told us we could when there was absolutely no proof that anyone would read you stories and teach you how to dream and tell you. offered a moral code of right and wrong for you to try and live by, someone went out of their way to explain every concept in this incredibly complex world to the child that was you while asking a million questions like how does the moon work and why? that we can eat salad but not grass?

And maybe they didn't do it perfectly. Nobody will be able to do it. Maybe they are no longer with us. In that case, I hope you remember them today if they are at this stage. You will find your own way to express your gratitude for all the steps and missteps that have brought us to this common destiny. I know words are supposed to be my thing, but I will never be able to find the words to thank my mom and dad. brother austin for the sacrifices you made every day so that I could go from singing in coffee shops to being here with all of you today because no words would be enough for all the incredible parents, family members, mentors, teachers, allies, friends and loved ones here today I have supported these students in their pursuit of educational enrichment.

Let me tell you now: Welcome to New York. I was waiting for you. I'd like to thank Nyu for technically turning me on paper into at least a doctor, not the kind of doctor you'd want. in case of an emergency, unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section or if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats on a minute. I never had a normal college experience per se. I went to a public high school until 10th grade and then finished my education doing homeschool jobs on the floors of airport terminals, then hit the road for a radio tour, which sounds incredibly glamorous, but in reality In reality, it consisted of rental car motels and my mom and I would pretend to have big fights between mother and daughter during boarding so that no one would want the empty seat between us in the southwest when I was a kid, I always thought I would go to college imagining the posters that I would hang on the wall of my freshman dorm room I even set the ending of my music video for my song Love Story in my imaginary fantasy college where I meet a male model reading a book on the grass and with a single glance We met I realize we had been in love in our past lives, which is exactly what you all experienced at some point in the last four years, but I can't really complain about not having a normal college experience for you because you went to nyu during a pandemic. global, being essentially locked in their dorms and having to do classes via Zoom, everyone in college during normal times stresses about test scores, but on top of that, they also had to pass a thousand exams cova, I imagine the idea of ​​a normal college experience.

It was everything you wanted, but in this case you and I learned that you don't always get all the things in the bag you selected from the menu at the delivery counter, that's life, you get what you get and how I would like it. To tell you with all my heart that you should be very proud of what you have done with it, today you leave New York University and then go out into the world in search of what's next and so do I. I generally try not to give unsolicited advice to anyone. Unless asked, I'll delve into this later.

I guess in this situation I have been officially asked to impart whatever wisdom I may have to tell you things that have helped me so far in my life. Please note that in no way do I feel qualified to tell you what to do. You have worked, fought, sacrificed, studied and dreamed this far to dare and so that you know what you are doing, you will do things differently than I did them and for different reasons. so I won't tell you what to do because no one likes that, however I will give you some tricks that I wish I knew when I was starting my dreams of a career and navigating life love pressure options shame hope and friendship the first of Which is that life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry everything at once.

Part of growing and moving into new chapters of your life is about catching and releasing. What I mean by that is knowing what things to keep and what things to release. You can't carry all the stuff, all the grudges, all the updates about your ex, all the enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started, decide what's yours and let the rest go. Many times, the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there is more room for them. A toxic relationship can outweigh so many simple and wonderful joys, you can choose what your life has time and space to discern, in Secondly, learn to live alongside shame, no matter how much you try to avoid feeling ashamed, you will look back on your life and shame retrospectively.

Shame is inevitable throughout life, even the term shame could one day be considered shame. I promise you that you are probably doing or using something right now that you will remember later and find disgusting and funny. You can not avoid it. so don't try it, for example I had a phase where all of 2012 I dressed like a 50's housewife, but you know what I was having fun with, trends and phases are fun, looking back and laughing is fun and while we talk about things that make us squirm, but it really shouldn't. I would like to say that I am a big advocate of not hiding your enthusiasm for things.

It seems to me that there is a false stigma around enthusiasm in our culture of carefree ambivalence that this perspective perpetuates. the idea that it's not okay to want it, people who don't try are fundamentally more chic than people who do and I don't know because I've been a lot of things but I've never been an expert in chic, but I'm the one who is here, so you have to listen to me when I say this, never be ashamed to try. Lack of effort is a myth. The people who liked him the least were the ones he wanted to hang out and be friends with in high school.

The people who want it the most are the people I now hire to work for my company. I write. I started writing songs when I was 12 years old. And since then it has been the compass that has guided my life and, in turn, my life has guided my writing. Everything I do is just an extension of my writing, whether it's writing, directing videos or a short film, creating the visuals for a tour or standing on stage, performing everything is connected by my love for the craft, the excitement of working in ideas, reduce them and polish them. everything in the end editing waking up in the middle of the night discarding the old idea because you thought of a new or better one or a plot device that ties it all together there's a reason they call it a hook sometimes rope Words just get me and I can't concentrate on anything until I have recorded it or written it as a composer.

I have never been able to sit still or stay in a creative place for long. I've made and released 11 albums and in the process, I changed the genre from country to pop to alternative to folk, and this may seem like a very songwriter-centric line of discussion, but in some ways I truly believe that we are all writers and most of us write with a different voice. for different situations you write differently in your Instagram stories than in your senior thesis you send a different type of email to your boss than to your best friend from home we are all literary chameleons and I think it's fascinating, it's just a continuation of idea that we are so many things all the time and I know that it can be really overwhelming to figure out who to be and when, who you are now and how to act to get where you want to go.

I have good news, it's totally up to you. I have terrifying news. It totally depends on you. I told you before that I never give advice unless someone asks for it and now I'll tell you why, as a person who started my public career in the Being 15 years old came at a price and that price was years of unsolicited advice. Being the youngest person in every room for over a decade meant I was constantly receiving warnings from older members of the music industry, media interviewers, executives and this advice came up often. themselves as thinly veiled warnings, see I was a teenager at a time when our society was absolutely obsessed with the idea of ​​having perfect young female role models, I felt like every interview I did included slight comments from the interviewer about one day It would derail me. and that meant a different thing to each person who told it to me, so I became a young adult while receiving the message that if I didn't make any mistakes, all the children in America would grow up to be perfect angels, however, if I did.

If I slipped up, the entire earth would fall off its axis and it would be completely my fault and I would go to pop star prison forever and ever. It all centered around the idea that mistakes equal failure and, ultimately, the loss of any chance at happiness or joy. rewarding life this has not been my experience my experience has been that my mistakes led me to the best things in my life and feeling ashamed when you make a mistake is part of the human experience getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to pass hanging out with you afterwards and laughing about it, that's a gift, the times I was told no or that I wasn't included, I wasn't chosen, I didn't win, I didn't make the cut, looking back I really feel like those moments were so important, if not more, crucial. that the moments when they told me yes, not to invite me to the parties and sleepovers in my hometown made me feel hopelessly alone, but because I felt alone, I sat in my room and wrote the songs that would get me a ticket to another place with label executives in Nashville he told me that only 35 year old housewivesthey listened to country music and that there was no room for a 13 year old on their list made me cry in the car on the way home but then I posted my songs on my myspace and yes, myspace. and I would message other teens like me who loved country music but just didn't have anyone singing from their perspective.

Having journalists write in-depth, often critical, articles about who they perceived me to be made me feel like I was living somewhere strange. simulation, but it also made me look inward to know who I really am. Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport where I lose every game was not a good way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to fiercely protect my private life, be publicly humiliated over and over again. again at a young age was unbearably painful, but forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of ever-fluctuating social relevance and likeability, get canceled on the internet, and almost lose my career. excellent knowledge of all types of wine, I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but in reality I'm not, I lose perspective all the time, sometimes everything seems completely useless, I know the pressure of living life through lens of perfectionism and I know I'm talking to a group of perfectionists because today you are here graduating from nyu, so thisIt may be difficult for you to hear in your life that you will inevitably speak badly, trust the wrong person, overreact, hurt people that they didn't deserve it, you will think too much, you will not think at all, you will self-sabotage, you will create a reality where only your experience exists, you will ruin perfectly good moments. for yourself and for others deny any wrongdoing you do not take the necessary steps to correct it feel very guilty let the guilt eat you hit rock bottom finally address the pain you caused try to do better next time rinse repeat and I will not lie mistakes you will make you lose things.

I'm trying to tell you that losing things doesn't just mean losing a lot of time when we lose things, we also gain things now that you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path every choice you make leads to the next choice, which It leads to the next and I know it's hard to know which way to go. There will be times in life when you will have to defend yourself, times when the right thing to do is to back down and apologize. Times when the right thing to do is to fight, times when the right thing to do is to turn and run, times to hold on with everything you've got and times to let go gracefully, sometimes the right thing to do is to throw away the old schools of thought in the In the name of progress and reform, sometimes the right thing to do is to sit back and listen to the wisdom of those who have gone before us.

How will you know which is the right choice in these crucial moments? No. How do I give advice for this? many people about their life choices, I won't, the scary news is that you are now alone, but the good news is that you are now alone, I will leave you with this, we are guided by our instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears our scars and our dreams and you will ruin it sometimes so will I and when I do you will most likely read about it on the internet anyway difficult things will happen to us we will recover we will learn from it we will be more resilient for it and as long as we are lucky enough to breathe , we will inhale, we will take a deep breath and we will exhale, and now I am a doctor, so I know how breathing works.

I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. You, we're doing this together, so let's keep dancing like we're the class of 22. You.