The Taylor Swift friendship bracelet movement has proved mateship is no longer for the boys.
The global pop star began the Australian leg of her history-making Eras World Tour, performing in Melbourne over the weekend. Her Friday concert was her biggest show yet, with 96,000 packed into the MCG and another 30,000 spilled outside the stadium. Swift was emotional at the magnitude of it all.
Not everyone is a Swiftie but even Aussies who don’t listen to her music are drawn to and talking about this colossal cultural movement.
Why? Taylor Swift embodies a core part of what it means to be Australian: mateship.
What is mateship?
The term “mate” is an iconic word used in Australian lingo. The Australian National Dictionary defines “mateship” as “the bond between equal partners or close friends; comradeship; comradeship as an ideal”.
Mateship is typically associated with things like the ANZAC spirit and sportsmanship – historically male-dominated spaces. While John Howard argued “mateship” had lost its masculine associations by the 1990s, his bid to include the term in the Australian Constitution’s preamble was ultimately shut down.
Nevertheless, mateship continues to be a core ideal in Australia. Research from UNSW in 2021 found 65 per cent of Australians understood mateship to be a key feature in the Australian national identity.
Interestingly, despite its blokey roots, it was more women than men who thought so.
And who else could bring this research finding to life than Taylor Swift?
Friendship bracelets
Part of the Eras World Tour experience for concert-goers is making friendship bracelets and exchanging them with other fans at the stadium.
The ritual derives from a lyric in her song, ironically titled You’re On Your Own, Kid, featured on her Grammy award-winning album, Midnights.
It’s ironic, because if anything, the friendship bracelet exchange phenomenon shows not a single person in that stadium is alone.
Swift has only performed three shows in Australia so far, and already, hundreds of people are sharing heart-warming friendship bracelet stories across social media.
Former Australian Olympic swimmer Giaan Rooney took her six-year-old daughter to the concert and was blown away not just by Taylor Swift’s “incredible” performance, but by the kindness of strangers.
“I hadn’t had the chance to make any (friendship bracelets) with Lexi,” Rooney wrote in a post on Instagram.
“Cue four girls in their early teens who saw that my 6-year-old only had one bracelet, so each gave her one of theirs – I was emotional!”
Outside the stadium, hundreds of Victorian police officers patrolling the fans “Taylor-gating” the MCG exchanged friendship bracelets with young fans. Speaking with USA Today, Senior Constable Alison Noonan said she had never seen anything like it before in her 13-year career.
“This is a very wholesome night,” Noonan said. “It’s a really fun, energetic night, and we don’t normally get this in our line of work.
“We love when the kids come up, feel like they can approach us and feel safe knowing that we’re here to help them.”
Even Queensland Premier Steven Miles has jumped on the trend, showing off a bracelet his daughter Bridie made for him.
“Officially a Swiftie,” he wrote on Facebook. “Thanks Bridie for the friendship bracelet.”
The spirit of mateship is well and truly alive in Australia at the moment – and this time, it’s women and girls that are leading the way.
Make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it
Female artists have their own way of expressing womanhood: dealing with misogyny, being confident, getting angry, showing love, and so much more.
For Taylor Swift, womanhood and girlhood is mateship: kindness, love and positivity.
The friendship bracelet phenomenon is a beautiful metaphor of womanhood in Swift’s eyes. Throughout her career, she has been vilified in the media, she has lost ownership of her own art, and in many dark corners of the world and on the internet, she is hated.
In spite of everything, though, she has millions of fans around the world exchanging friendship bracelets. Women of all ages and backgrounds are connecting with one another for no reason other than sharing joy and love and laughter.
While the ideal of mateship may have been popularised in Australia by the ANZAC soldiers following the First World War, Taylor Swift mateship doesn’t come from war, conflict or competition: it comes from an intelligent woman creating art to share with the world, a resilient woman who can’t help but unite people together through her music.
We can all learn something from Taylor Swift and her fan base: with all the horrifying, scary, sad news happening in the world right now, mateship can go a long way.
“So make the friendship bracelets. Take the moment and taste it. You’ve got no reason to be afraid.“
~ Taylor Swift
PHOTO CREDIT: Twitter, @iitwasmaroonn