How did a little girl who grew up on a Christmas tree farm become the world's biggest pop star?

Pop Pantheon's new series digs into Taylor Swift's origin story,

from her upbringing in West Reading, Pennsylvania, and knocking down label doors in Nashville as a teenager,

to her rise to country superstardom and eventually the global stage.

Whether you're a Taylor obsessive or a Swiftie skeptic, this series will illuminate the genesis of

a supernova and one of the most important

figures in American pop cultural history.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts,

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Music Hello and welcome to Hot Masterpiece Theater, the show where we have high-brow conversations about lowbrow entertainment, mainly reality TV. I'm Jolenta Greenberg,

a comedian and culture critic, and I'll be serving as your reality TV dramaturg. Reminder,

a dramaturg is a researcher that works on a theatrical production to give background info and help

everyone understand the show they're working on or the show they're watching.

And a reality TV dramaturg is someone that treats reality TV like serious art.

And that's what we're doing here.

As you might remember, we are making our way through different archetypes that we come

across in reality TV.

And archetypes are those character blueprints we talked about earlier. An archetype

sort of breaks down the basics about different kinds of characters and who they are. And they do

show up in reality TV. So this week, we are going to talk about an archetype that's pretty

strategic and cunning and her villainous alter ego, she's pretty complicated, she is

...