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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33969 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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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.

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