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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33971 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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Taylor Swift has officially endorsed Harris/Walz. Specifically citing both the debate and various AI memes of her voting for Trump, even referring to herself as a childless cat lady. It's Joever for Orange Man.

This is the actual meat-and-potatoes culture war topic coming out of the debate.

My model of a swiftie is a PMC or PMC-lite woman between 22-35 without much political awareness but who is very relative-status and fashion aware (in the cultural sense). She more than likely has a male significant other. This is where things get interesting.

Straight men who aren't hyper culturally attuned don't like Taylor Swift. Her songs are about break-ups and girl power, there's very little common ground there. Those same men generally don't care if their wife/girlfriend is a big swiftie - it's her thing, her hobby, go for it. But the Kamala endorsement is doing something tricky - it's, overnight, turning some portion of these fans into "politically aware." They will defend Kamala nearly as rabidly as Queen Taylor. Even a hint of disagreement could be met with "nuclear levels of sour."

The evidence for this was how women suddenly became die-hard Chiefs fans overnight after Swift began dating Travis Kelce and appearing at games (fun fact: If you watch chiefs games this year, and Travis Kelce scores a touchdown, the camera will cut to Taylor in the booth.). The online NFL community has a not-conspiracy-conspiracy that the NFL made sure the Chiefs won the superbowl last year because there was too much swiftie money on the line for them not to. I remember reading that Chief's merchandise sales more than doubled.

I don't get worried about political polarization between urban and rural, bachelors degree and non, even poor and rich. Those are the basic cleavages you see time and again through human history. Harsh polarization between men and women gets worrisome - this is how women end up with actually curtailed rights and the legal status of property of male relatives. Again - the worst victim of feminism is women.

I'm tired of this campaign and whoever wins in November, the country loses in a meaningful way. One of my effortposts last week was on the fact that neither candidate has any economic plan that's connected to reality. The one thing I'll be looking at with excitement (nervous in nature, however) is exit polls on men and women between roughly 20 - 50. If we see gaps of over 25%, strap in.

Straight men who aren't hyper culturally attuned don't like Taylor Swift.

I like Taylor Swift. She does, in fact, have plenty of songs that are about neither breakups nor girl power. And many of her breakup songs are in fact still good songs that can appeal to men, because male artists actually write a ton of breakup songs as well. Turns out it’s a pretty universal human experience that provides ample inspiration for music and art.

"The eugenics advocate enjoys Taylor Swift" was not on my 2024 bingo card. Yet here we are.

I mean she’s hot, and her business acumen indicates she’s a lot smarter than the average pop star. So ‘Taylor Swift as the new aryan master race’ is at least fairly reasonable.

Everyone knows that the oncee and future Queen of hyper-American cosmetic destiny is Britney Spears.

She was sent to us at the Millennium for a reason. Accepting Swift is the acceptance of shallow, imposter level goods. But do as you see fit! Kneel before your God, Babylon!

Britney Spears has working-class physiognomy. A worthless idol for superstitious peasants. Taylor Swift has a refined, aristocratic mien - built to be immortalized as a votive statue in a grand porcelain temple.

There must be war.

God wills it!

You’re both wrong. Given the current demographic trajectory of the United States, the Queen of hyper-American cosmetic destiny is Jenna Ortega. Sorry CHUDs, you will marry the qt-3.141596 goth Latina gf. And you will be happy.

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I mean if you’re looking for a physical model to emulate and optimize humanity toward, you could certainly pick far worse than Taylor Swift.

I was thinking of you, Hoff, when I saw Musk's weird tweet appearing to offer to impregnate Taylor Swift. My first reaction was, that would be a cute and funny thing for Hoff to say, not at all cute from Elon.

Which goes back to my point that Elon is just a regular extremely online guy stuck being famous.

I mean, presumably it’s only funny coming from me because there is no plausible path whatsoever to me actually impregnating Taylor Swift. (Teardrops drench my screen protector as the finality of this admission fully sinks in.) Whereas Elon, I think, sincerely means it and thinks there’s at least a non-zero chance she’d express interest. If I was in Musk’s position I’d probably shoot my shot too, although I’d like to imagine he has the resources and clout to arrange a more favorable venue to attempt that conversation with her, rather than a flippant tweet. What do I know, though?

Now if anyone here wants to help me concoct an elaborate plan to surreptitiously swap my sperm donor sample in for Elon’s, I am all ears. I will contribute little or nothing to the logistics or execution stages, as I need to conserve my energy and limit stress to ensure I’m producing the best possible sample.

I mean, that's my point. Elon still jokes like what he says doesn't matter, while enjoying the audience adulation he gets because it does matter.

If he was in any way serious, oh, Lord.

Though a run in at MNF where a drunk Jason Kelce punches Elon Musk to defend his brother's honor would be THE BEST.

Travis (not Jason) Kelce knocking Elon's teeth in would be the culture war Big Bang to set everything right again.

The King of Chad DudeBro's who is dating the queen of The Popular Girls erases high flying nerd who got too big for his britches.

Cue Kickstart my Heart by Motely Crue while Zombie Regan drives a Pontiac Firebird straight into the Oval Office.

Why Travis over Jason specifically? I picked Jason because it has the added layer of male brotherhood, and because his retirement removes the in game impact.

The offensive line doesn't score points. If you don't score points, nobody cares.

That's be being hyberbolic and, as a football fan, I, of course, understand how important line play is. Offensive line dudes, in particular, tend to be highly intelligent.

I chose Travis because I'm writing a farcical vignette on the internet about celebrities fighting.

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Though a run in at MNF where a drunk Jason Kelce punches Elon Musk to defend his brother's honor would be THE BEST.

Ah, but who paid the bartender to over-serve Jason? Elon did. And who has been taking the best Brazilian jiujitsu night classes money can buy for a year and a half in preparation for this moment? Elon has. And when Elon vanquishes Jason in hand-to-hand combat as Taylor looks on, mouth agape and heart aflutter, and with all of America watching in stunned adoration, that’s the perfect time for him to make his move.

(And that’s when it becomes very important for you guys to have come up with an airtight plan to make sure the Hoffmeister Sauce Switcheroo will go off without a hitch. We have one shot at this, guys.)

Harsh polarization between men and women gets worrisome - this is how women end up with actually curtailed rights and the legal status of property of male relatives. Again - the worst victim of feminism is women.

This seems unlikely (and as far as I'm aware, has never actually happened, although I'd be interested to hear if you have examples).

A more likely outcome is the situation in South Korea. Young people retreating from dating and socialising, spending more and more time looking at screens (whether at work or in their leisure time), collapsing birth rates, relentless pursuit of status goods and focus on the self.

Certainly bad, and (within a long enough timeframe) civilisation ending. But no Handmaid's Tale.

within a long enough timeframe

This timeframe is not that long - likely within the lives of people alive today.

Yemen has an interesting last 50 years of history here

@Crowstep

Wouldn't the best historical example be the christianization of the Roman Empire, where women converted at much higher rates, and male Christians were much more often babtised by mothers or nurses?

Gibbon et al had plenty to say on the topic.

Rome was about 10% Christian at the battle of milvan bridge and all the evidence we have suggests women had more freedoms in Christian households not fewer.

@hydroacetylene

In an extended sort of way, Gibbon would argue that, yes, the Christianization of the western Roman empire lead directly to its fall, which lead to the barbarian conquests and the dark ages. Where all kinds of bad things happened to the daughters of Roman citizen women in the roughness of the times.

The last part is pretty much Canon on a lot of the DR isn't it? "Modern Western Feminism, in being pro immigration and wussifying western men, will lead women to a future in which they are treated much worse than they are now, by destroying the western civilization which currently protects women's freedoms."

Wouldn’t Swifties be priced in the polls already? How many Taylor Swift fans are Trump supporters who’d change their votes based on her endorsement?

She isn't changing any votes, but she will get more people to vote.

Taylor Swift gets thousands of women to literally follow her across continents. She could be a significant poll driver just by asking her fans to vote.

In this case it's not just thousands, it's 10s of thousands or 100s (cumulatively). I went to one of her euro shows, the number of Americans at each one was insane.

It's not that the Swifties are particularly critical thinkers when it comes to politics, but many of them will use this as a moral superiority pump for their existing opinions, and those who were apathetic before may take the opportunity to swap friendship bracelets at voting booths.

Isn't the main reason that, since Taylor Swift is quite a bit less of a phenomenon in Europe than in US and the US tickets were thus considerably more pricey, it was actually cheaper in many cases for fans to fly to Europe than to US for a show (especially since many of them would have had to fly inside the US in any case)?

I know a number of American women who went to European shows and this was the stated reason for that per them.

I can tell you that after spending the money on it I don't think it was much cheaper. She increased prices for the Euro shows, but at least people who had FOMO from the US tour were able to get them at "retail".

The whole point is that many people organized entire European trips around this one event, her cultural power is.... significant.

Yes. But this still means that US Swifties are a sufficiently large, rabid fandom that with a quantity supplied of 64 sold-out US stadium concerts (i.e. something like 4 million tickets) the market-clearing price is high enough that travelling intercontinentally is preferable to paying it.

Will the endorsement move votes. Probably not because nothing does, but it is less unlikely than most other things. There are not many swing voters left in America, but my best guess is that they are overrepresented among Swifties. Remember that Swift grew up Red Tribe (childhood in small-town PA, teen years in the Nashville country scene) and has not done anything that would alienate her Red Tribe fans. Since she switched from country to pop, her music clearly has cross-tribal appeal. And if the Democratic theory of change is correct, Red Tribe women whose identity is not primarily Christian are a key swingable demographic.

Red Tribe women whose identity is not primarily Christian are a key swingable demographic.

Unmarried red tribe women who are not religious.

and has not done anything that would alienate her Red Tribe fans.

I mean, besides explicitly endorse liberal political candidates and positions multiple times? How about calling out “homophobes” (on, for example, the smash hit “You Need To Calm Down”)? Or collaborating with hip-hop artists like Kendrick Lamar (on her song “Bad Blood”) and B.o.B (on his song “Both Of Us”)? Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what you mean by “Red Tribe” - I’m on record stating multiple times that I think the existence of “Red and Blue Tribes” is fake, a projection of the bubble Scott Alexander lives in - but those seem like pretty clear ways to alienate Christian conservatives.

You're missing two components.

First, very few people who listened to "Bad Blood" have also done a deep walkthrough of GKMC. Hip-hop collaborations are massively popular, so the political message of the feature doesn't matter.

The size of Swifty fandom is large enough that it is self-sustaining in its own value to women. Being part of the in-group is a huge, huge part of the appeal. Taylor can pay lip service to various leftist causes. Her fandom can take these to extreme positions, but the blame never sticks to her. The groupchat lighting up with celebrations of abortion mean you're annoyed at your friends, not her.

The other half is that her leftist messaging has been overall pretty moderate and lukewarm. Even her killshot last night boiled down to "Do your research and vote, I'm doing this". That's all you need. Millions of women will repost that with

"Yass Queen! End Facism!"

And that's not hyperbole - it's a literal quote from an Instagram story I suffered through this morning.

If anything, she faces frequent horseshoe backlash for not being extreme enough.

I don't think there's been anything like celebrity endorsement parity in my lifetime. Maybe Reagan?

Probably not many, but at least a few i guess. This election is so close you never know what might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

It's more about getting apolitical people out to register more than anything else, if I had to guess.

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