Five years ago, Taylor Swift proudly proclaimed in her documentary, “Miss Americana”: “If I get bad press for saying don’t put a homophobic racist in office, then I get bad press.” This year, she was photographed with two podcasters Trump thanked in his presidential victory speech.
It shouldn’t come as a shock that the singer’s change in attitude is not an isolated event — it’s just the most recent display of how pop culture is normalizing extreme-right values.
Looking back at the late 2010s, videos that are now mainly deemed “millennial cringe” were typically left-leaning content, incorporating shallow concepts of feminism and equality. For example, the YouTube channel As/Is, a sister branch of Buzzfeed, posted a video in 2015 titled: “AM I A BAD FEMINIST?” which asks compelling questions like, “Is it okay if I shave my legs?”
Buzzfeed, along with Vox and other left-leaning media companies, dominated the internet scene with videos that were consistently gaining millions of views. It’s a startling contrast to what politics looked like at the time — Trump’s first inauguration was the same year, but liberal culture still seemed to be cool in the public sphere.
Around 2020, like much else, pop culture changed.
Online activism boomed as young people were quarantined inside their homes. In perhaps the most blatant display of performative activism, Blackout Tuesday had celebrities like Megan Fox, Courteney Cox and, yes, Swift posting black squares to their Instagram feeds in support of the Black Lives Matter protests.
It was also the year Swift released her “Miss Americana” documentary, which showcased, among other aspects of her life, her desire to speak out in support of liberal policies.
Unfortunately, it’s not just Swift that has changed her tune since then.
Today, right-wing male podcasters gain popularity, tradwife content is on the rise and young people overwhelmingly support the Republican Party and Trump. Being online right now just makes me want to ask, “What happened?”
It might seem strange to care about a conservative shift in pop culture, considering Trump has been a prominent political figure for years. But while the White House has the power to enact policy, pop culture has the unique power to ingrain and normalize behaviors in society. The content we consume on a daily basis is what shapes our morals, beliefs and sense of self.
Often, the content we’re consuming is not overtly conservative. The “just a girl” and “girl math” trends, for instance, seem like harmless jokes — yet they undermine women’s judgment and normalize the belief that women are inherently less intelligent than men.
What happened to public figures jumping at the chance to show shallow political allyship, and why is Swift posing with MAGA supporters?
The answer lies in what we’ve come to accept as normal. The radical right has utilized memes, podcasts and social media platforms like X to communicate and establish itself as a normal part of the online ecosystem. Often, this includes utilizing hate speech and dehumanizing language towards others. In 2018, Trump said in reference to some undocumented immigrants: “These aren’t people. These are animals.” If that’s what’s being said in a public roundtable, it’s unnerving to think about what’s being expressed anonymously online.
In an internet sphere that came from loud, performative liberalism, it’s hard to understand where the sudden silence is coming from. Unfortunately, it seems like it’s out of embarrassment — a product of intentional right-wing messaging that liberals are embarrassingly emotional.
Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro is known for saying, “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” conveniently the title of his book, in rebuttal during debates. Fox News often weaponizes the word “cringe” in its pieces about left-wing content, particularly that involving women expressing their emotions. There’s a distinct emphasis on de-centering emotions in right-wing language, either because it is cringey or weak.
The far-right pushes the messaging that liberals are the overly-emotional ones, while it is the level-headed, factual side. There’s no actual evidence backing this — it’s just a product of the messaging fed to us through pop culture, and it’s working. If we think back to the 2010s Buzzfeed era, Swift would probably be widely condemned for that photograph with podcasters Will Compton and Taylor Lewan. But it seems like everyone is too scared of it being considered cringey to speak up.
Swift is not just another pop star; she is a colossal culture figure that has real influence. Within 24 hours of Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris for the 2024 election, nearly 340,000 people had visited the custom voter registration link she created. Her Eras Tour last year broke records and was credited with boosting the economy in some tour cities. Swift isn’t just another pop star — she has shown she can set the tone for pop culture and beyond.
So, when an image of her posing with two podcasters known for platforming Trump with the caption, “Confirmed: Taylor Swift is FOR THE BOYS” is posted online, it says something about our culture and what we will accept from one of society’s largest public figures.
If you still think that it’s silly to care about what a pop star does, just allow yourself to care for a minute. It’s not cringey to say that Swift aligning herself with MAGA supporters is upsetting, especially when she has an audience of primarily young women. It’s not cringey to take things seriously, even if they’re “a joke” on a social media post. In fact, it’s the only way to make a change in what we consider acceptable.
We should take it as a bad sign that Swift has loosened her supposedly firm political stance to make room for Trump supporters. Politics shouldn’t be trendy. Unfortunately, if Swift thinks that’s acceptable behavior, there’s a whole slew of her fanbase who will think so, too.
I have no doubt that plenty of people find Swift’s behavior unacceptable, but when we’re living in a culture that shames people for being “cringey,” it’s not a knee-jerk reaction to speak up. It’s much easier to pretend not to care and evade the possibility of being considered “cringey.” It’s also the mentality that leads us to normalizing the extreme-right in online spaces.
The performative activism of the 2010s isn’t the answer to our current problem, but it does allow us to picture a middle ground where we’re able to have a culture that cares deeply about the people in it without shame. The real danger isn’t in Swift’s photo-op, it’s in a culture that shrugs at the normalization of hate speech and apathy. If we are aiming for a better society that rejects harmful extremist values, it starts with being unabashedly caring people, even at the risk of embarrassment.
Nora Harr is a second-year English and computer science combined major. She can be reached at [email protected].
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