Carter Anderson has been a fan of Taylor Swift since he was about three years old.
“I think probably when Fearless came out in 2008, I was three years old and I remember going onto YouTube on this old PC we had back at our old house. And then my mom would show me the You Belong With Me music video. And then I was hooked.
“I’ve always subscribed to her music and she’s been my role model since I was three and since I can remember.”
The 17-year-old from Nanaimo, B.C., said Swift presents herself to the world in a way he would like to emulate.
“She just has these beliefs of, you know, protecting women, protecting the gay community,” Anderson told Global News.
“She’s such a huge advocate against sexual assault and equality and all these amazing just social activism that I also subscribe to myself. And it’s just so important that we have role models like this in the community.”
When Anderson heard Swift was coming to Seattle for the Eras tour, he knew he had to get tickets.
He had seen her once before in Vancouver when he was seven years old but this time, after waiting in an online queue for about five hours and only being left with nosebleed seats or floor seats, he decided to splurge and get as close to his idol as possible.
When he got the confirmation from Ticketmaster he said he cried.
“It was like getting a college acceptance letter. Like, it was just everything I could have dreamed of,” he said.
Anderson had been working two jobs to save up for these tickets so he was beyond excited to go with his mom.
They went down to Seattle for the first show on Saturday night and Anderson said the atmosphere was just electric.
“The music is amazing, like building up,” he said. “We waited about two and a half hours in line for merch and just like we saw, we went around the tents and everything. My dad, he was walking back from the Blue Jays game while we were walking into the Taylor Swift concert. It was just, it was a whole, whole family event. And to witness that with everyone was incredible.”
They were only about 20 to 50 feet away from the VIP tents on the floor and Anderson said it was worth every penny.
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One of the key moments during the Eras tour that happens at every show is a fan receiving the 22 hat. Swift comes out on stage wearing a black hat and singing her hit, 22, and at some point, she picks out a lucky fan and gifts that person the signed hat off her head.
Anderson never thought that person could be him.
He and his mom were dancing when they were approached by a woman who told her to come with them.
They thought they were getting kicked out for dancing, Anderson said.
But suddenly, they are led through a gate by the side of the stage over to a platform. Fans are screaming for him, telling him he’s so lucky and they saw him dancing earlier, and Anderson said he was just trying to take it all in.
“So we get over there, we have security all around us,” he said. “My mom and I step onto a platform. Taylor Swift at this point is already beginning the 22 song, Taylor’s version, of course, and so she’s going down the stage like I am not processing a single thing at this moment, living in the moment, singing lyric for lyric.”
At the lyric “I’ve got to have you,” Anderson said Swift points at him, starts skipping down the stage and kneels inches away from him.
“At this point, I can see her pores, like it’s just absolutely absurd to me,” Anderson said.
“And then, so she kneels down like, I’m like, ‘I love you. I love you.’ I don’t really know, like, what to say, where to start. I definitely don’t know when to stop talking. And then she just kind of like, lends me over the hat and she goes, ‘Do you accept this hat?’ Of course. I’m like, at a loss for words, but I somehow conjure up ‘yes.’ We’re just kind of sharing this moment together. I’m like, ‘I love you. I love you so much.'”
Anderson said Swift stood back up and he yelled to her “I love you. You’ve made me who I am today! I love you. And then she says ‘I love you back’.”
He said he couldn’t believe it, in front of 72,000 people, he got to meet and share a moment with his idol.
“This little, like, gay boy from Vancouver Island gets to meet Taylor Swift,” he said. “It’s not in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would get to meet this person that I’ve based my entire belief system upon. It was religious. The only way I can describe it. It was totally amazing.”
For the rest of the show, Anderson and his mom got to watch from the VIP area where Swift’s mom and dad were also watching from.
He said they got to meet Swift’s parents and they were also genuine and lovely people to talk to.
But it was also the experience of sharing this with his own mom that Anderson said made it feel so special.
“This was the best moment I’ve ever had with her,” he said.
“Just she was just floored, in awe and in shock. She took it all in (and) the way Mama Swift unconditionally supports her daughter the same way is the same way mom wants to support me, which is super. Like I’m so blessed to have such amazing parents. And so when my mom got to meet Momma Swift, (and) have a heart-to-heart with her, it just made her night.”
Anderson said the experience has been a positive one and he has been hearing from friends and Swift fans all around the world about his special moment.
He also wants to get into the music industry in some way and wants to make that part of his career – perhaps going into music law.
But this is an experience he will never forget.
“It definitely lit a fire within me,” he said. “It was kind of like, wow, this happens to people and, there’s opportunities, there’s networking and it’s so it’s just crazy.
“I can’t believe that this is kind of what my life has become in the last four days. Just getting to meet Taylor Swift and getting to see this world of opportunity that there is for me and is for other people like me in the world and from small towns and Canadians and stuff like that. And I’m part of the LGBTQ community and it’s super, super surreal.”
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