A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - The Political Power of Taylor Swift

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Taylor Swift has the power to swing the presidential election. What if nothing else matters? Support me on Patreon! Find Angela on Twitter, not X. Find more of A Bit Fruity. Find more of Matt. Huge thanks to Blueland for sponsoring this episode. Get 15% off a cuter, more sustainable way to clean at www.blueland.com/fruity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back tonight and meet the midterms. Are you ready for it? Taylor Swift decided to speak now, breaking her silence on politics. The Taylor Swift, she is the latest celebrity to jump into the nation's heated political debate. Taylor Swift broke her silence on politics over the weekend publicly backing two Democrats in Tennessee. Well, Marshall Blackburn is doing a very good job in Tennessee.

I'm sure Taylor Swift has nothing or doesn't know anything about her. And let's say that I like Taylor's music. about 25% less now. Taylor Swift seems to have an effect on nearly everything, and now she's making an impact on young voters. The spirit was incredible, and when that came out, it went to the number one song. It was beating everybody.

It beat Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift was named Times 2023 person of the year. And for those of us, normal people on Earth One, a megastar with a billion dollars in ticket sales for a single tour, could be given this title for the impact she has had. But on Earth 2, right-wing commentator Jack Posovich said, quote, the Taylor Swift girl boss, Sciop, has been fully activated to her upcoming 2024 voter operation for Democrats on abortion rights. The Pentagon Psychological Operations Unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset.

There are those who miss the ongoing, quite obvious impact of culture on democracy and politics. great artists and great politicians do the same thing. They engage with the culture. Hello, hello, and welcome back to A BitFruity. I am so happy that you're here. Today, we are going to be touching on the untouchable. We're just going to do it. If you would like to support the show and you would like more of the show,

you can subscribe on Patreon. We're on Patreon now. I'm so excited. We've been having a lot of fun over there, and we're doing bonus episodes and live streams that you can participate in. So, you know, I'm really excited about it. The link for that will be in the episode description. And if you don't want to join on Patreon or you can't for whatever reason, then just kick back and hang out. I'm so happy that you're here.

Today, it's Taylor Swift Day. It's Taylor Swift Day. I am joined today by Angela Watercutter. Angela Watercutter. You have an amazing last name. Thank you so much. I did nothing to earn it, but I'm happy to happen. Would you say you're a tech journalist? Yes. I mean, I write for Wired. I'm a senior editor there. My beat is culture, but because it's wired, that sort of infiltrates into a lot of different tech spaces as well.

And also, so much of tech has infiltrated culture, right? You know, we have TikTok, we have social media, we have all sorts of things that move into that space. And so, yes, what I do as both a culture writer and a tech writer are very much merged. We're going to get into all of those areas today because Taylor Swift has become so big. Yes. There is nothing she doesn't touch. So just a few days ago on Fox News primetime, Jesse Waters publicly aired a segment in which he proliferated a conspiracy theory. that like Taylor Swift is an agent of the Pentagon or something.

Like, I want to start here. Taylor Swift's the biggest star in the world. Sorry, Gutfeld. She's been blanketed across the sports media entertainment atmosphere. The New York Times just speculated she's a lesbian. And last year's tour broke ticket master. I mean, I like her music. She's all right. But, I mean, have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?

Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon's, psychological operations unit, floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset. What kind of asset? A sci-op for combating online misinformation. You know, the Jesse Waters thing, like, feels like an even farther extrapolation of something that came out a couple months ago when, so, you know, Taylor Swift was named Times Person of the Year. It was a big hoopla.

Everybody was talking about it. And one of the things that came out of that was that certain conspiracy theorists and other folks on the internet and the right-leaning space started saying that Taylor Swift was basically a sci-op for the upcoming election that like she had been sort of given a pedestal in order to swing votes in one way or the other which are people thinking that like somebody infiltrated time and made them pick her person of the year you know like how did it get from that to like she's going to swing the next election so so the idea being spread on the most watch cable news channel in the United States is that Taylor Swift is like a de facto agent of the state I don't even know

you know it's a little wild right like it's very and the thing with the the water segment was like yeah then okay now it's about the Pentagon which like otherwise it was just more of a like election season kind of a thing so like it's clearly gone in a lot of different directions I wanted to start there because I think the fact that whether we like it or not these genuinely important political commentators are talking about Taylor Swift in this way is indicative of her role in politics today, which is certainly not something she signed up for. Right. And we're going to get into what that means.

But like, as you, the listener know, Taylor Swift is one of the most famous and influential people on earth, I would say at this point. She was times 20, 23 person of the year. She had a historic run on the era. Tour. Is it still going on? Yeah, I think it's now going to other places, but yeah. Well, the Ares Tour made her a billionaire. Yeah. Which is also something we're going to get into because I have complicated feelings about Taylor Swift. I think part of the reason the Ares Tour is ongoing is because it was so economically stimulating in local economies across the globe that governments started begging Taylor Swift to come perform at their cities so that their municipalities, would get an economic boost, and they were offering her, like, honorary gifts for doing so,

which is just like, that's an unimaginable amount of power to have. Right. Yeah, to know that you could almost essentially bring jobs to a city. You know, like the restaurants get a boost, hotels get a boost, like, just because you showed up. Taylor Swift is an industry. Yeah. She is the most streamed woman on Spotify.

She has over 100 monthly, 100, 100 monthly listeners. Good for her. She has over, she has over a hundred million monthly listeners on Spotify. But, you know, the thing with Taylor Swift is people will list her achievements. And I think in this moment, we have to understand her power and influence as so much greater than the sum of her achievements. Like, she has such an undeniably tight grip on culture, not just pop culture, that everybody is forced to pay attention, regardless of whether or not they listen to her music. Well, it's interesting, I think, to me about Taylor Swift, well, a couple things, a lot of things, but a couple of it. matter to this conversation right now is that she's an artist who now in her 30s was still like one of

those first artists to also get the internet. She was on Tumblr. She like interacted with her fans there very early on and that sort of mindset and that sort of awareness of her persona has carried through throughout even though she never needs to post on any social media ever again even though she does. But you know, because of that and because that has gained her this influence, she's become one of those celebrities that everybody politically wants a piece of because if she says boo about you at all in one way or another, that does have huge impacts. Yeah. And we're going to get into the timeline of Taylor Swift's public involvement in politics, which is pretty brief. She does a kind of trail of breadcrumbs, mostly liberal breadcrumbs. But something that you reported on was this

kind of left-wing, right-wing tug of war over Taylor Swift's endorsement. She's become so powerful and influential, like you said, that she can endorse someone or criticize someone in politics, and it has legitimate sway over elections. People are going to question why I'm making an episode about the politics and the political power of Taylor Swift. And fair enough, that's a fair question. But, you know, the answer is that Taylor Swift is like, at least in the United States, she's like a part of the political totem pole, whether you or I want her to be. I don't know. It reminds me a lot of like the way that like 10 years ago, sometimes people would talk about the Kardashians. And Taylor Swift is more influential

than any of the Kardashians have ever been. Yeah. But I remember when the Kardashians were ascending to cultural ubiquity. And I used to get in arguments with my mom. She'd be like, I don't want to talk about them. And I'm like, mom, right. I, you know, personally, I've never stand the Kardashians, but at some point to ignore their profound effect on culture and the way that we live and the way that we consume, it becomes ignorant to an extent. And just because, and I think there is a real gloss of misogyny in all of this that, like, we view any women, but particularly women who put a lot of effort into, like, in the case of the Kardashians, like, their look, we view as like, their public presentation,

right. Yeah. We view it as like inherently frivolous. But at some point, their impact on culture and politics, those things are worth having conversations about. Do you think, not to throw a question back at you, but like, do you think we'd have influencers in the way that we have them today had we not had the Kardashians? Right?

You know, like it's really hard to say. I mean, for a lot of those early years, it was like the trends were often set or I mean, I wouldn't say they were set by Kylie Jenner because oftentimes the trends that she like, quote and quote set were actually set by black women. Right. But popularized largely for sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And like, I don't know. You think about like the selfie. Mm-hmm. And it's Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, people who there is total cultural disdain for, but like how can we look the other way? And so in the case of Taylor Swift and in the case of politics, I just want to give a little bit of a background on Taylor Swift's political influence.

So in September of 2023, Taylor Swift, which is, you know, just a few months ago, Taylor Swift posted a single Instagram story frame. And she wasn't even in it. At that point, she had 272 million Instagram followers. And it was just a plug for vote.org. It was nonpartisan. You know, it was like a blue background with white cursive text that just said, like,

sign up to vote. And that led to, on National Voter Registration Day, it led to 35,252 new registration. which was the most since 2020 and a 23% jump from the prior year. Vote.com, the organization that she linked, reported a 1,200% jump in participation in the hour after the post. MSNBC recently did an interesting segment where they were like, look, we know that we have an important role in the political discourse, but Taylor Swift reaches 10 times the amount of people every day

that all of the cable news networks combined do. And they were like basically making the case of like, we need Taylor. Yeah. You know, we need Taylor. After she started dating Travis Kelsey, sales of his jerseys increased by 400%. As everyone knows,

the Swifties single-handedly brought down ticket master. Right, brought ticket master to heal, right? Just, yeah. What happened there? This is like several Swifty news cycles. Right, yeah. And I mean, like, I can't keep up. Yeah, you know, show tickets for the Ares Tour

went on sale and nobody could get them. Like, it was just a melee. But the problem was is that Taylor Swift had gone to them, or at least this is what she had said in, you know, a statement after everything happened. She was like, I asked Ticketmaster, like, no, you don't understand. When I put these tickets on sale, it's going to be an influx, can you handle it? And she had been reassured that they could and then they couldn't. It kind of led to this whole thing where Swiftie's made enough of an uproar that ticket master, what, and went in front of the Senate. Is that right? Like, they were just. There was a Senate. hearing that lasted three hours about the Taylor Swift Ticket Master controversy, which was like politicians moving to like break up what they consider as a monopoly at the master.

And I just remember watching parts of the hearing and the representatives were like quoting Taylor Swift lyrics on Capitol Hill. And I just remember being like, this is where we are. Like I don't know. I don't know if I need my politicians to be like memes. You can't have too much consolidation, something that unfortunately for this country as a owed to Taylor Swift, I will say, we know all too well. A lot of people seem to think that's somehow a solution. I think it's a nightmare dressed like a daydream. A few million Taylor Swift fans would respond. This is why we can't have nice things. But once again, she's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers. Take a master auto, look in the mirror and say, I'm the problem. It's me. USA Today

recently published an article that was titled, Taylor Swift has power to swing the presidential What if nothing else matters? That's wild. It is wild and it's true, at least to an extent. Right. And it's like, again, whether or not we want to acknowledge this, like, the ties between politics and celebrity, at least in this country, are quite tight at this point. Yeah. The margins are so thin, yeah.

Yeah. And like whether or not we want to live in that world is secondary to the fact that we do. If you imagine if Taylor Swift was just like, I'm not releasing another album. unless X million people register to vote or, you know, like, unless X happens or X person gets elected or whatever, I don't think you could deny that, like, that would have some impact. It may not necessarily have the impact that she calls for, but it's still a lot more influenced than, like you say, an MSNBC segment maybe would reach. The California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom recently said that her influence on the 2024 presidential election would be, quote, profoundly powerful. I really quickly want to just take a minute to give a huge shout out to Blue Land for sponsoring this episode and helping make this show possible. When you buy cleaning solutions, you know, your mirror cleaner or multipurpose cleaner or hand soap or dish soap, the main ingredient in any of those things is water. And a lot of what you're paying for is the shipping weight of the water.

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Blue Land is offering listeners of a bit fruity, 15% off their first order. So if you would like to take advantage of that, go check it out at blu-land.com slash fruity. Again, that's blu-land.com slash fruity. Now back to the show. So I want to get into the timeline of Taylor Swift's public political involvement. And spoiler, like, it's not that long of a timeline, but the reverberations, everything she does, are so large. Before 2018, Taylor Swift was basically a political. Yeah. And as you wrote, OnWired, she was embraced at that point by the far right. I didn't realize she was like embraced by like neo-Nazis. Yeah. Yeah. And like I think in the last 10, if not 20 years, the sort of ways that political organizations or, you know, people of certain political beliefs

operate in very similar ways to fandoms, right? You know, like, you have, like, online discourse about this thing. You, like, have your people that you know from your Facebook group or whatever. And there was a sort of segment, I think Vice did a great piece about it at the time, looking at the fact that some people in these corners were, you know, sort of embracing Taylor Swift or at least, like, expressing a sort of fandom, like, you know, she's, one of ours because at the time she hadn't said anything and so it could be like well you know she probably agrees with us how much of that was related to the fact that she was coming from country music

i mean i think probably a large part of it right like like the far right loves country well and there's just like a presumption that the artists and that you know kind of share an ideology you know of at least if not far right at least more conservative yeah yeah i should say the right the right in general loves country and it's funny because like the gay left also loves country just in a different way that ends up marrying in the middle. Right. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I mean, people talked extensively about her silence.

And I think it's interesting because when you have that much power, not saying something to a lot of people is saying something. Yeah. It lets people put their own thing into the vacuum, right? I mean, I have complicated feelings with celebrities weighing in on politics because I think when you have hundreds of millions of followers online, you have to be extraordinarily careful about what you say, and I think we've seen a lot of times that people haven't. And I think that hasty involvement in some political movement that you're projecting to hundreds

of millions of followers can lead to the partial or total spread of really bad misinformation. Right. You know, sometimes bigotry. I mean, I think about like the microphone that Kanye West had over the last couple of years, which is crazy. But, you know, on the other hand, total silence in the case of Taylor Swift before, she ended up speaking in 2018 can be an endorsement of the worst types of beliefs. Right. Like if you don't come out immediately and say, oh, no, that's not me. These people

saying that, like, I agree with them, it allows it to have more air in the room than you might imagine. Yeah. And I mean, notably, she didn't, she didn't say anything in the 2016 election. Yeah. Which Trump won, which was a choice. Which was, which was something, because I do believe at the time, there were calls for her to come out for Hillary or, you know, something, you know. And she didn't say anything, and that was a choice. The Guardian in 2017 after Trump was elected, they published an op-ed that was like penned as from the staff of the Guardian. It was like the Guardian's position on Taylor Swift. Right.

The editorial board of. It was literally the Guardian's editorial position on Taylor Swift where they called her an envoy for Trump's values because she hadn't spoken. Still, through his election, she hadn't spoken on anything. In 2018, that changed. Yeah. Yeah, when she came out against Marsha Blackburn for Tennessee Senate, right? Yes. So who was Marshall Blackburn? I say Senator from Tennessee because she did end up winning despite what Taylor had said. But yeah, I think she made a post on Instagram that was like kind of saying, like, I normally don't weigh into these things.

But Marsha Blackburn, she felt was anti-choice, you know, anti-LGB plus protections. and she was like this, this is my fans, this is, you know, something I can't stand for. So she, yeah, she came out against her in that election. This was the first time she got involved in politics. This was her foray into it. And it was a, it was a scanned Polaroid photo. The Polaroid era. It was, I guess this was the Polaroid era.

Taylor Swift always does everything in her Taylor Swift way, which I understand, look, I heavily aestheticize my own political commentary online. I'm not knocking her there. Everyone needs to have a brand. Everyone needs to have a brand, but it's a black and white photo of her in a similar outfit to the one you're wearing. Yeah, in my folklore era. Yeah, we're a swifty adjacent. I just want to interlude here quickly.

Angela and I discussed before we started recording, we both have a swiftly adjacent history. Right, yeah. I think that through friends and through just appreciating good songwriting, I have come to really like her as a songwriter. and to love something is to analyze it, right? To love something is to analyze it. And also, like, I don't know, part of my impetus for also talking about this today was, I don't know if you listen to The Daily, the New York Times podcast. I feel like everyone listens to The Daily.

A couple weeks ago, the daily as one of their year-end episodes in the last week of December, they made an episode called The Year of Taylor Swift. And I listened to it. I was very excited because I was like, oh, we're going to talk about the cultural, the cultural implications of the power of Taylor Swift. Like, that was what I thought it was going to be. And it was great. And I'm not knocking anyone in the involvement of that episode.

But it was ultimately an episode on a political podcast, on one of the biggest political podcasts in the country, praising her songwriting skills. I love Taylor Swift's songs. I mean, she's been on my, like, Spotify wrapped every year for God knows how long. Like, I can't knock it. But I was left, after listening that, I was left with, like, a little bit of a, like, oh.

Yeah. We're not also going to discuss the billionaire status, the effects on politics and economics, all of this other stuff that I think is like inextricable and really important when we're talking about someone this powerful. So, okay, this entire episode is just going to end up being like caveats. No, we're getting back. We're getting back on track. So she posts in 2018 to Instagram.

I'm going to read part of the caption that I have here. It was a long caption. But here's what she wrote. In the past, I've been reluctant to publicly voice my police. political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, which she's referring to, I assume, the election of Donald Trump. I feel very differently about that now. I believe in the fight for LGBT rights and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is wrong. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country

towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for all Americans, no matter their skin color, gender, or who they love. Running for Senate in the state of Tennessee is a woman named Marsha Blackburn. As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes that

they should not have the right to marry. These are not my Tennessee values. And so this was like pretty forceful. Yeah, yeah. Considering like you were saying, the periods of silence before it. I think it was just surprising all around that she said anything considering she hadn't up until that point. I remember Donald Trump condemned her. Yeah. What do you have to say to Taylor Swift now that she's in politics?

Taylor Swift's jumping in a politics. What do you have to say to her? And what did she say? She said she wants people to vote the Democrats. And not Marsha Blackburn, especially. You know, well, Marsha. Blackburn is doing a very good job in Tennessee. She's a tremendous woman. I'm sure Taylor Swift has nothing or doesn't know anything about her. And let's say that I like Taylor's music about

25% less now. Okay. I like her music 25% less. Yeah, it was a very specific number. I don't know how we reached it, but that was what he said. Two years later, she releases the Miss America on a documentary on Netflix, which was a documentary about her and her career up until that point. And And there was a scene in Miss Americana where you see she's arguing with her dad over whether or not to make that Instagram post. So I want to play it. And then we'll talk about it. We've not got involved with politics or religion. Yeah, but this is on the home front.

And also, back in the presidential election, I was in such a horrendous place that I wasn't going to pop my head out of the sand for anything. Why would you? I mean, does Bob Hook do it? Did he do it? Just make Jackard to do it? Hey, what the hell, come on. No, what I'm saying right now is... First of all, these aren't your dad's celebrities

and these aren't your dad's Republican. Imagine if we came to you and say, hey, we've got this idea that we could halve the number of people that come to you next to it. And the other thing, just from a security seat point, Geller Swift comes out against Trump. I don't care if they write that.

I'm sad that I didn't two years ago, but I can't change that. I'm saying right now, that this is something that I know is right, and you guys, I need to be on the right side of history, and if he doesn't win, that at least I, at least I tried. Here's the problem. I just want to read you what I wrote, and I'm going to try to start. I just really want you to know that this is important to me.

I totally agree with the issue. Have you heard her? Yes, I've read the entire thing, and the bottom line right now, I'm terrified. I'm the guy that went out and bought armored cars. I worry for her safety as much as anybody does, maybe more. It really is a big deal. She votes against fair pay for women. She votes against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act,

which is just basically protecting us for domestic abuse and stalking, stalking. She votes, she thinks that if you're a gay couple, or even if you look like a gay couple, you should be allowed to be kicked out of a restaurant. It's really basic human rights, and it's right and wrong at this point, and I can't see another commercial and see her disguising these policies behind the words, Tennessee Christian values. Those aren't Tennessee Christian values. I live in Tennessee.

I am Christian. That's not what we stand for. I need to do this. I need you to just... Dad didn't need you to forgive me for doing it because I'm doing it. That clip has gone viral many times over, and people have had a lot to say about it. of people on the left, people on the right.

I think it's very interesting because like, and we've seen this with a lot of celebrity, either biopics or documentaries where like, you know, they're always done with the support of the artist in the camp. So like, in some ways, you know that it is them putting out what they want the world to see of themselves and their persona. And so like, you know, I do watch that clip with a little bit of skepticism, but not cynicism. I think, I don't know that it was like staged per se.

I don't think it was stage per se, but like it was a choice that she wanted it to be part of the documentary, that she didn't say, turn off the cameras, I need to have a private conversation with my family about this right now. And I think that she wanted to show the struggle, which I think is really, I think is authentic, like the struggle that she had around putting out that message and what it could mean for her career. And so I've always kind of just thought it was a, I was going to say it was tailored and then I realized how funny that sounded. But, you know, like, it was, you know, like, it was part of the entire packaging of herself that was happening around the time that Miss Americana was released. But at the same time, I don't think that it is in any way disingenuous or, you know, like, it's not authentic. Like, I think that it was something that she wanted out there and kind of wanted on the record. Well, and it calls into question because, like, she hasn't spoken up about politics many times since then. In a lot of ways, this was kind of a flash in the pan as far as her. participating in political discourse. And so it, to me, it just begs the question. I don't know what you think about this, but it's like, how much does she, or doesn't she want politics to be

part of her image? I think she has gotten to a point, and I think that this probably just comes with maturity and age and reaching a point where it's like, you're a little more set. Like, if Taylor Swift stopped working tomorrow, she'd be fine. You know, like she kind of is, I should say. Yeah, you know, like, and not even just financially, but like she's done enough of a body of work, I would think that, like, her legacy is secure, as I say or something. And so I think that, like, with that maturity kind of has come a realization to your point earlier, that, like, she's going to be in the conversation, even if she doesn't want to be. And so she does have to have said something on a few of the things that matter to her.

But I do think that something like that clip that you just played for Miss Americana or some of the other sort of, like what you were saying earlier, like, bread comes like, I made cookies for Biden, you know, like those kind of things. She puts out there so that she can put them out there and then like stop getting questions about that. You know, like she can be like, I spoke about this. It doesn't mean that every interviewer asks her about certain things. Like, where do you stand on queer marriage? You know, like because she's said it. But there's always going to be a new issue.

So there's probably always going to be something to ask her. But I feel like she laid, she was laying some groundwork so that she doesn't have to find a new way to deflect the same question over and over and over again. In 2020, she did the Biden cookies. Yeah. She posted a picture on Instagram where she's holding, she's like kind of smirking and wearing overalls and she's holding a plate of cookies that have the Biden Harris 2020 logo on them. And that was her way of endorsing Biden and Harris, which like, you know, that's nice. And endorsements and endorsements. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And that's the thing. It's like, right. It's just sort of like she didn't then go out and do a stump speech or, you know, like she didn't like show up and play guitar at a at a rally or something. And that's basically like it. I mean, she's had like a couple tweets.

She, she tweeted, I think, when Roe versus Wade was overturned. She tweeted some like sassy things at Trump at one point. Like we're, oh, oh, it was actually after the death of George Floyd. She went to Twitter and she was like, how dare you instigate violence and racism and, you know, we're going to vote you out, which, you know, she was right. So she's like, but that's basically it. So she has been, I mean, she's been pretty. elusive. And like, I already see the comments where people are saying, like, she's a pop star. She's not a politician. She's, you know, an entertainment celebrity. Like, she doesn't have to do all

these things. And like, on one hand, I agree, I'm aware that this is not what she signed up for. But at what point with, like, this specific amalgamation of, like, power and money and fame and influence, does the celebrity and the political figure converge? When you are in that position, like we were talking about where even your silence is a stance, how much does it seem like you need to say something anyway? If she came out now and said X, Y, or Z about the 2024 election, it probably wouldn't be that different from what she said before. So it's not like she's sticking her neck out any further.

You know, so it's sort of a, I feel like maybe she's just waiting. Look, I live and breathe the internet. Yeah. And specifically political internet and people are like constantly firing away about how, Taylor Swift should be doing and saying more. Right. And is there a merit in that critique? Is there a merit to critiquing somebody for not speaking up more?

I mean... But not, okay, I just want to say it. Like, not just somebody, though. Right. If you are at that level, yeah. People were, like, fight amongst themselves in, like, friend groups about, like, what Instagram story did you or did you not post about the latest thing that happened? Right.

This is a little different. Yes. I think it's worthy of critique, but also, I don't know that it's necessary. that everybody has to say, like everybody of her stature has to say something. I think that she also probably will. To make people leave her alone. That or just because depending on which way 2024 goes, you know, it might be the same sort of thing as the midterms in 2018 where, you know, there is just such a poll to do so

that she will feel so inclined. I don't know. Do you think there's merit or is there, is it more complicated? I think there is merit. I think, and I'm going to probably get heat for that, but, you know, it is what it is. You get heat for everything anyway. I watch people stick their necks out quite a bit more who have so much more to lose and who are so much more marginalized. I mean, Taylor Swift is a billionaire. This is only the fourth time today that I've mentioned that, but like I don't think we should like baby billionaires.

Right. And I've seen people frame Taylor Swift's often political. silence in the context of the Dixie Chicks, now known as just the Chicks. And so the chicks were, I mean, you probably know this, but the chicks were, they are an amazing female country group that in the early 2000s at a show they did in London, they spoke out against then-President Bush's plan to take America to war in Iraq. They were like one of the first like musical acts to be like truly canceled because they spoke out against war. Yeah.

There were people destroying their records in the streets. They were, you know, it wasn't streaming services then it was radio. Yeah. And people, conservative activists and like kind of like Patriot American activists were calling the radio stations to have their music pulled from the airways. And they went from like one of the biggest country acts in the country and in the world. Their career took an enormous hit from it. Yeah.

Like enormous, enormous, enormous hit. Taylor Swift, having come from the country genre. Mm-hmm. And that story about the chicks. Yeah. is part of the story of that genre. People have framed her silence in the context of that of like, well, she could lose everything. Right.

And I don't think she could. Taylor Swift is bigger than the chicks have ever been even at their height. Yeah. Taylor Swift is a billionaire, which none of the chicks have ever even approached. Yeah, come close to. Yeah. There's this whole like, well, she could lose everything. And I don't think there's a world in which Taylor Swift is at risk of not being extraordinarily wealthy.

And to that point, I won't. wonder, do you think that rather than saying something, it would be better if she gave like $100 million to whatever, you know, campaign or issue or whatever she felt? It's a good question, but I think there aren't a lot of billionaires, but there are relatively, there are quite a few billionaires. And the thing that Taylor Swift has, which a lot of those mostly like white businessmen that nobody knows the names of, the thing that she has is influence. The reason why I mentioned at the beginning about how she boosted voter registrations by like a thousand percent in the hour that she posted that Instagram story or something

is because the amount of people that she's registering to vote, which by the way, statistically when young people vote, they vote Democrat. And those are the people who she's getting to sign up. And when you look at the amount of votes that elections are actually won by, she has the potential to have legitimate sway over these things. Right. Again, whether we want her to or not is secondary to the fact that she does. Right. Back to that point you were making about the USA Today story. I think it was USA Today where it was just like,

she could sway this election, does anything else matter? If she says no more music or no more tour until I get however many people to vote or however many people to sign up or whatever, that would probably have a undeniable impact. People are going to say that I'm a hater or whatever. And I'm just not. Like I don't know how to say it. I'm just not.

But I don't think someone can ascend to this level of wealth and power without receiving an appropriate analysis. and sometimes scrutiny where it's warranted. Yeah. I think being a billionaire warrant scrutiny, which I wanted to ask you how you feel about that, because, I mean, like I said, about, like, the daily podcast, which is a political podcast,

and it didn't mention the fact that she's a billionaire. I don't know if there's, like, a little communist voice inside of me where it's like, like, like, we can't, like, can we talk about this person without talking about her wealth? Right. And, like, jet travel. Because even when we think about some of the biggest artists, Yeah. Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Beyonce. I think Beyonce might approach being a billionaire. But for the large part, like a lot of these very, very famous people, they don't have nearly the amount of wealth that Taylor Swift has, especially after the era's tour. And it's like, I don't know. It's like the elephant in the room guys. Yeah, because under capitalism, how much money you have is how much sort of sway and, you know, say you have in things. So yeah, it's hard to, like, we can't divorce them in the same way that we can't divorce the idea of fandom and the general space that people.

take up in our in public life from their money from you know their output in this case it's musical output and and tours and performances and stuff but they're inextricably linked whether Taylor Swift wants them to be or not I think over time she started to confront that to your point yes like having scrutiny over that it's just part of having the conversation about celebrity and how we treat it I think if Taylor Swift had her way she wouldn't come within 10 miles of any of these conversations I think unfortunately for her, and perhaps unfortunately for everyone, that that can't be the case. You can't reach a certain level in public life without knowing that your very existence is, it's an old and but a good and at this point, you know, that the personal is political.

Like she can't be in the public eye without her very existence being some kind of political act. You know, like it's a fortunate part I think of being a female artist. Her existence is going to be politicized, she wants to or not, so she might as well do something with it. And like, I mean, I don't think celebrities are like going to save it. Like I think whether like democracy in the United States sinks or swims, which we're going to find out. Like I don't think Taylor Swift is necessarily at the helm of that. I don't know.

I know people are going to be like, well, what about, you know, X, Y, or Z who could be doing something? I'm aware a lot of people are participating in the direction of this country. And I don't think Taylor Swift is like the end-all be-all. But, you know, again, I just, I think when someone amasses this level of wealth and power and fame, I'm becoming a broken record. But I think that to the point where they become, where a global industry forms around the brand that is their person, we should be cognizant of their outsized role in, you know, the cultural and political vacuum, no matter how much they would like to not be part of that conversation. And, and we'll see. I don't think that we will go throughout 2024 without. something without an endorsement. Right. But I don't even know if it'll be an endorsement so much as just a like,

I think they'll be more like, get out the vote or, you know, something that's like, even if it's as mealy mouth, we've never had a more important election in our lives, et cetera, et cetera, which doesn't really like. Which we say every four years. Right. Yeah. Every four years is the most important election of our lives. I feel like that will happen, but I think it'll depend on how kind of comes down in those last months before November. I wish I had the Taylor Swift Crystal Ball, but I don't. If we all wish we had the Taylor Swift, Christopher. And until then, it's going to be a bunch of left-wing and right-wing political commentators vying for Taylor Swift. Yeah.

Which is what it's always been and what it will continue to be until she makes her stance known. Angela, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much for having me. For joining me in my, I would say, tepid swiftid-dom. I'm a tepid-swifty. I'm a swiftie in music and I'm a cynical swifty in politics. I feel like I'm going to have this conversation a lot. And so I'm glad to, I'm glad to have had it with you first. Where can people find you, support your work? Look for my writing on wired.com. You can find me on, I still want to say Twitter, but it's X now.

No, you can say Twitter. I have a rule against saying X on this podcast. We don't say X. You can find me on social media at Water Slicer, which is my ever fun name, just slightly tweaked it from a nickname that I had many years ago. I wish I had a fun last name. I mean, I do have burn. in which I've, you know, my entire life people have been like, oh, the bears, the bears, the bears. No, it's spelled differently, but you have water cutter. I think that's kind of badass. I've come to embrace it. It was when I was a kid, it was like, how do you cut water? But, you know, I always just to say, well, you know, I was there when they parted the Red Sea.

I don't know. Like, none of it. It's somebody re-spelling a German name and it just came out like that. So, like, there's no, like, real great precedent for it. Yeah, Moses cut water. I want to thank you so much for joining us today on A Bit Fruitie. I'm curious what all of your thoughts are on the political fervor of Taylor Swift. So if you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment.

And again, if you want more, so actually, if you want more Taylor Swift discourse, by the time this goes up on Patreon, I will have done a kind of deep dive thorough analysis of another piece the New York Times did recently, which was a large, speculation about Taylor Swift's sexuality, which was wild. And so, yeah, over on Patreon, we have a discussion of the ethics of publishing that piece, the evidence within the piece of whether or not Taylor Swift is queer, which I just don't think really deserve five thousand words in New York Times personally. Yeah, we put it in the context of conversations about queer baiting and, and, you know, her overall cultural influence and what is and what isn't

our business. So that's on Patreon now. And until next time, stay fruity.