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Taylor Swift is making news daily right now, it seems. The pop star is at the top of her game and her “Eras Tour” is a cultural sensation.
The 52-show tour, playing all the major venues in America, faced unprecedented ticket demand that left many tickets in the hands of scalpers, millions of fans unhappy and prices through the roof. For example, as of early Thursday morning, tickets for Friday’s show in Chicago ranged from the cheapest seat at $1,520 before fees on Stub Hub to over $16k.
But, ticket prices are so high because people are simply willing to pay at that price for the opportunity to see Taylor Swift. The get-in price for seats was over $3000 for her final show at MetLife Stadium in suburban New York last Sunday.
When people get to the Taylor Swift concert, a weird thing is happening. Many are reporting they don’t remember any of it, a form of amnesia.
Here’s the Indy 100 with more.
Taking to social media, many users have shared their inability to recall the events of the show, from small details to even significant parts of the concert. Some described having feelings of guilt after waiting so long to attend the show and leaving without explicit memories.
Ewan McNay, an associate professor in the psychology department at the State University of New York in Albany, told Time that the experience may be a result of too much excitement.
He explained that ‘this is not a concert-specific phenomenon – it can happen any time you’re in a highly emotional state.’ This is because as a result of feelings of excitement, the body’s stress levels increase, which in turn causes neurons associated with memory to start firing indiscriminately. McNay shared that this makes forming new memories ‘really hard.’
The biological explanation for this occurrence is due to the body seeing excitement as a state of stress. The body then starts pumping out the brain’s favourite molecule for memory: glucose. Because the body thinks it’s stressed, it doesn’t want to waste energy on memory formation. Your vagal nerves, which regulate internal organ functions, also become stimulated as a result of the perceived stress.
Imagine paying $1000+ for a Taylor Swift ticket, only to remember none of it. Yikes.