Standing backstage, microphone in hand, pop icon Taylor Swift takes a deep breath and says, “No one out there that I know of in the audience actively hates me.” She flashes a red-lipped smile and walks toward the stage.

This moment, though brief, is probably the most important in Swift’s new Netflix documentary, Taylor Swift: Miss Americana. It reveals that Swift, just as any other human being, cares about what others think. Obsessively so. It’s for this reason Swift decided to break her silence and weigh in on politics: She heard the criticism from leftist activists who prodded her to leverage her fame and prominence, and she listened.