781
Taylor Swift Drove Nearly 338K People to Vote.gov With Kamala Harris Endorsement Post
(www.hollywoodreporter.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
781 points (98.5% liked)
politics
19238 readers
2670 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Oh absolutely, by any means necessary. Which is why I say it's wonderful.
But it's disheartening that a celeb endorsement can drive such engagement. Might be dating myself here but it always reminds me of "what does Ja Rule think!?!"
I'd argue this isn't any celebrity though. Say what you will about Taylor and her music but she has successfully marketed herself as a wholesome role model for younger generations who has ran a nearly 20 year career scandal free. To them she represents more than celebrity fame. She's a movement and if she says vote they will vote.
I'm glad she's a wholesome role model/movement.
I'm glad that she's encouraging folks to vote.
I'm glad she's encouraging folks to vote Dem.
I'm less glad that there are kids whose participation in democracy seems to hinge on a singer. I know that this has always been the case to some extent it just feels increasingly so and kind of sad. Let's not forget that trump's main qualification to get into politics was his celebrity.
My grumpy old man take is our politics are getting dumber and dumber and people registering to vote because their favourite musician told them to, no matter how wholesome or good she is, seems a symptom of that.
For singers who are mostly political, sure, this kind of makes sense (think most of the famous 60s singers, most punk etc) but, to the best of my knowledge/limited listening, Swift's music has seemed pretty non political, which makes it a bit weird to me. (That being said, also what makes it a bit more effective. Rage against the Machine telling folks to vote is preaching to the choir.)
Tl;dr: a good thing has happened, I'm just pining for a better yesteryear that may have never actually existed.
I mean, Neil Young and Joan Baez were encouraging people to vote back in the 60's, so it's been at least 60 years that popular music has been closely involved in youth culture's voting habits
Like I said:
To me, there's a difference between music that's explicitly political effecting political behaviour and music that isn't.
If, I dunno, BTS got hundreds of thousands of kids to register as Republican, I imagine/hope people would be concerned that that's where kids are getting their political direction from.
Edit: I have no idea if BTS is actually political, I assume not. Most of the young music this old fuck listens to are political because that's what I enjoy, so I'm not great at picking pop non political stuff. Sorry!
Taylor Swift definitely has some political songs like "The Man," which is focused on the double standard faced by female celebrities, or "You Need to Calm Down," which is explicitly pro-LGBTQ+, etc.
Neat! Though, I think her political songs aren't really what she's known for? I could be completely wrong though!
Edit: I mean, especially when you think about the artists you first listed like Baez and Young.
You're definitely right; maybe someone like Dolly Parton would have been a better comparison, but even Dolly doesn't really capture his big Swift is.
Really, my first instinct was to go with Neil Young because he's one of my favorite artists of all time, and I do think that a lot of his biggest hits weren't really overly political, probably split about 50:50 even if we remember the more political stuff now. For every "Ohio" and "For What It's Worth," there's a "Heart of Gold" and "Helpless."
But really I'm splitting hairs because I like talking about music and playing the devil's advocate. Your initial point that Swift isn't known for writing protest music is absolutely correct.
Still, neat to learn that Swift has some political content! I in my monumental ignorance just assumed it was all songs about various exes. (I listened to one album and that seemed like the theme though I got bored partway and stopped really paying attention.)
And as much as I hate celeb culture, there's a small part of me that's like "maybe we could all agree on a President Dolly Parton?"