Taylor Swift is an Icon, But Rihanna Rules The World

We recently learned that Taylor Swift will get an icon award on the annual Teen Choice Awards. This is a brand new category, and it’s not the only one. Jonas Brothers will get the Teen Choice Decade Award, which “celebrates the group’s evolution over the past ten years.”

2019 Teen Choice Awards will take place on Sunday, Aug. 11 at 8 p.m. Apart from Taylor Swift and Jonas Brothers, it will include Noah Centineo, Robert Downey Jr., Jessica Alba, Madison Beer, Lauren Jauregui, Gregg Sulkin, Sky Brown, Candace Cameron Bure, and John Stamos.

Taylor will receive Icon award just days before her new album is released. “Lover” will be on sale from Aug. 23, and it contains 18 songs. There’s a lot of a lot on this album,” the singer told Entertainment Weekly in May. “I’m trying to convey an emotional spectrum. I definitely don’t wanna have too much of one thing…. You get some joyful songs and you get the bops, as they say.” There’s also, Swifty added, some “really, really, really, really sad songs,” but “not enough to where you need to worry about me.”

It is enough to get any Taylor Swift fan excited. But our focus is now moving to Rihanna, though there’s no special reason. Swifty writes more and better than Riri, while Beyonce is a better singer. So what makes us think bad girl Rihanna is this generation’s Madonna? Here are the receipts:

Beyonce and Taylor Swift have very calculated PR machinery. It is very strict and interesting, but you know they are businesswomen and you don’t wanna mess with them. Rihanna, on the other hand, at least seems to be much more prone to taking risks. In fact, she seems more laid-back, more carefree. Self-proclaimed bad girl Riri is all for a good cause, but she also loves to party, does not care if she gained weight or if you catch her in a less than perfect edition.

Rihanna is charming because she is not all work all the time. But she does work hard. She has Fenty Beauty, Fenty fashion line under LVMH, her singing career and more. She is also a survivor of a vicious attack by her ex Chris Brown. After that, Rihanna doesn’t sell her personal life, she doesn’t talk about it. She has similar qualities to lady Diana, Prince, and other legends, from showbusiness and more.

What about the others? Selena Gomez is incredibly gorgeous and charismatic and for her somewhat limited talents, she has a lot of fans. Lady Gaga is another example that women can have it all, but she knows how to play the media and that can be exhausting. Ariana Grande can sing, but her image is simply wrong. And there’s Miley Cyrus, great singer, very “woke”, yet her “Wrecking Ball” era was oversexualized and again, that gets boring far too soon.

We already saw all that artists/entertainers had to offer before. What we cannot have enough is star quality. We saw it with Bowie, George Michael, Michelle Obama, Madonna, Elvis,… It helps that Riri is gorgeous and young, but her spirit, her energy, and carefree approach will be just as relevant in the decades to come.

On a scale from zero to “You are going to hell”, how furious are Taylor’s, Beyonce’s and other fandoms now? Remember, this is not putting other women down, this is a simple observation. It is a celebration of fame without too many PR tricks.