• worldwidewave@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Upon seeing photos of the two of them, popular conservative voices seized on the moment, with Charlie Kirk immediately highlighting Kelce’s pro-vaccine advocacy and Tomi Lahren referring to Swift’s “lefty, liberal, brain-dead political opinions.”

    Swift, however, has typically moved cautiously and hesitantly when it comes to the political arena. Both right and left have been desperate to claim Swift as one of their own, yet she remained exceptionally quiet on politics for years — including during the divisive 2016 presidential election won by Donald Trump. Swift’s lack of comment back then enraged some liberals — an editorial in The Guardian in 2017 called her “a musical envoy for [Trump’s] values.”

    This changed in 2018, when Swift broke her studied silence to speak out against Senate Republican candidate Marsha Blackburn and endorse two Democratic contenders in the Tennessee race. It didn’t make a difference in the conservative state — Blackburn won — but it served notice that Swift wasn’t entirely apolitical.

    Since then, Swift has left a trail of liberal breadcrumbs — including endorsing Joe Biden for the 2020 presidential race and supporting LGBTQ+ rights through her music. But while this appeased some of her critics, it generated a whole new set of angry voices against her.

    Taylor Swift has barely endorsed any Democrats or Democratic issues, and yet she’s immediately tarred as a “brain-dead lefty”. And they’re upset at the football guy for taking Anheuser-Busch ad money.

    The problem is that we live in an age where anything cultural immediately becomes political, and anyone on “the wrong side” is vilified in some cheap act of tribalism. Talk about actual issues, not about colors on flags! It’s boring, it’s cheap, and it’s making any kind of civil discourse impossible.

    Do you hate that Taylor occasionally alludes to gay people existing and that being are ok? Is it that she likes to wear rainbow colors and hang out with the queers? Are those the issues? That’s homophobic, let’s move on. Jeez.

  • Seraph@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    If she’s dramatically increasing voter turnout I’m not sure the rest matters to me.

    • SpaceBar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t even care if she increases some turnout for the right. The more people who vote, the better it is for the country.

    • Pratai
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      1 year ago

      While registering to vote is always good- it’s not voting. Hopefully this has an effects during election.

  • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    She’s a world leader, whether she wants to be or not. She’s not the first, certainly, and the weight of that responsibility can’t be very fun when all you wanted to be was a musician, not a major public figure.

    But, with great power does come great responsibility, and I think she’s coming to terms with that. I just hope she remembers to stay level-headed about it, which I think she might. Musicians are often pretty in-touch with their own feelings.

    • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The only other musician turned world leader I can think of in the scope of her fame would be the Beatles.

      The world literally hung on their every word in the 60s. And that was four people. This is one person who can move 100 million + with a single statement, lol.

      Absolutely wild man.

      • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think Bono from U2 gets enough credit for how much he helped in raising awareness for a variety of things. He’s no John Lennon, but he did have quite an impact in those pre-internet days.

        But yeah, she’s pretty high on the list. And definitely standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak, which I think she knows. She wouldn’t be where she was without the likes of Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Madonna and Sinead O’Conner each suffering to plow the road partway first. Among countless others that pitched in.

  • pastabatman@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I generally dislike massive celebrities being overtly political outside of their artistic endeavors. Their political opinions are no more valid or important than anyone else’s yet they exert a ton of influence over their fans, often young and impressionable fans, who are highly likely to agree with them without really informing themselves on the issue. I think they need to be super careful and responsible with that power.

    With that being said, I’m really struggling to be upset with Swift or Kelce for “wielding their influence” to “promote their politics” as outlined in this article. Swift is cool with LGBT people and tells her fans to register to vote? Kelce is pro vaccine and also did a beer commercial with a brand that also did a sponsored social media post with a trans person once? This stuff is so benign it’s barely even news. These issues are only political because Republicans specifically made them political so if they’re upset about it, I can’t really feel sorry for them.

    • GiddyGap@lemm.eeOP
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      1 year ago

      These issues are only political because Republicans specifically made them political so if they’re upset about it, I can’t really feel sorry for them.

      Republicans are upset about the 65,000 young voters she got to register to vote. Pretty safe to say there aren’t many Republicans among them.

      Edit: It’s actually more than 100,000 young voters.

  • tehmics@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Kelce’s rumored relationship with the “Blank Space” singer sent Swifties (fans of the singer — which includes me) into meltdown.

    Who the fuck writes like this? This is just SEO keyword drivel. Great, now the article might appear in searches for the song title and ‘swifties’ but it reads like the author had a stroke mid article and couldn’t remember who they were talking about