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‘Mastermind’ Taylor Swift drives hoards of fans to voter registration site
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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I thought her fans were mostly young girls, as in, not yet able to vote.
Still cool, not sure it's newsworthy though.
Uhh, that was 15 years ago. The core of her fan base is, like, in their 20s and 30s now.
Can confirm, fan of Taylor Swift, and am in my 30s.
Yup, my wife and her friends are all huge swifties in their late 20s
Huh, I thought that was a phase most grew out of and a new generation cycled in.
Well, it's cool that she's doing this.
Must be a massive rock you call home.
I mean technically we all call a massive rock home. It’s just still hot on the inside and covered in other stuff
I adore you
Apparently.
I have zero interest in the scene of the artists I actually listen to, how much interest do you think I have for the scene of artists I don't listen to?
You don't seem to have an interest in touching grass if you've missed that the world has kept turning.
Do people have to have an interest for everything?
It's not unusual to have artists that cater to a certain kind of people and for them to stick with that type of people through their career even if they're personally changing because that's what they know.
Heck, I tried to remember the last song I heard by Swift and I just realized that I can't even tell... I thought that Firework was by her instead of Katy Perry, that's how little I care about her.
I never expected you to know taylor swifts current songs you dingus. You already made it clear that her songs are not your thing and you arent invested in fandoms. Thats fine.
I expected you to have a broad understanding on society in general. My comment was very derogatory and i apologize.
I mean, musicians evolve as they age too. I'm in my 40's and don't much care for her earlier stuff. But the album "Lover" is really good and I quite enjoy her two chill covid-era albums. Maybe give some of that stuff a listen and see why so many people enjoy her stuff.
Open your heart in October and let yourself experience ’1989’ once Taylor’s Version comes out. It’s a pop masterpiece.
I'll give them a try. I've had a lot of trouble finding pop music I like anymore, but I think Harry Styles is kinda interesting.
I mostly listen to random indie music these days, such as The Interrupters, and classic rock. But occasionally I'll find a decent pop song.
You thought what was a phase?
Liking Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift got popular when I was in college, and I just always assumed that most of her fans were teenagers (nobody my age seemed to like her music, aside from a random hit like "Shake it Off"), and they eventually moved on to different artists. I thought it was a little weird when my early-20s cousin went to her concert (she was a fan as a teen too), but I just figured it was a nostalgia thing.
It's kind of like boy bands in the 90s or Slipknot/Korn in the 00s, they seemed to appeal to a certain age demographic and then fans moved on. Or at least that's what happened in my circle of friends and acquaintances.
Are you saying you don't listen to any music from when you were a teenager anymore?
Do you still listen to all the music you listened to as a teenager? Do you actively follow all artists you listen to? Do you actively follow all artists you used to listen to? Do you realise you're writing on a post in a politics community, not a music one so there are people here who just don't have any interest for music?
I didn't say "all" the music. Dude makes it sound like it's abnormal to still like any music from your youth when the converse is more accurate. You do realize we're talking about a musician and her music here so there are people in this conversation who have an interest for music, right? sheesh
Take a listen to her newer stuff. Her lyrics are tight, topical, and she's got catchy melodies.
I'll check her out. I haven't listen to anything by her in about 10 years, so surely things have changed.
Looks like you triggered her rabid fans that can't believe some people don't give a crap about Taylor Swift...
Yeah, I'm surprised at the negative response here. I didn't criticize her or her fans, just expressed surprise. I even commended her on encouraging people to get registered to vote.
Maybe that means we've "won" if even relatively neutral comments can trigger a brigade. When I first joined, comments didn't get more than 5-ish comments in either direction, but I'm getting high double digit down votes (not good comment, but my original one), which means even a silly comment is getting lots of attention.
So yeah, whatever.
@sugar_in_your_tea
Her 5th studio album came out nearly 10 years ago. Plenty of her mainstream fans have grown old enough to vote by now.
Wow, it's been that long? I guess I figured most people moved on some years ago, and most of her current fanbase is still 13 or whatever.
That's not how music works bud. It is usually generational and rides on nostalgia.
Wait, are you suggesting that this "generational" thing is why I have to go to a Native American casino to see Quiet Riot??!?
To some extent, sure. However, I also think people grow out of music as well, at least I have.
For example, I used to love Dashboard Confessional, Plain White Ts, and Modest Mouse as a kid (went to concerts for the first two), but these days I rarely listen to any of them, and certainly not Dashboard Confessional. These days, I'm into very different music, like The Interrupters, The Hu, and apparently a lot of classic rock (from before I was born, and after my parents' generation).
I'm pretty much right in the age range for Taylor Swift (I'm in my 30s), but I and pretty much everyone else I interact with (professionals in an office setting) don't listen to anything from the era we grew up in. I even have a sizeable CD collection that I haven't touched in over a decade that sits in storage with my other things from childhood.
My parents listened to music from their era all throughout my childhood and through to today, but I guess I never got nostalgic for it and listen to anything from the 50s to today, though I have trouble finding any pop music from any era after Michael Jackson that I actually like anymore.
It's a bit of a downer but being in my 40s now, and talking to my siblings and peers, the almost universal call of nostalgia doesn't really hit until after you've lost people, and depending how close they were to you = duh.
I can't listen to Led Zeppelins Physical Graffiti without thinking of my dad the entire time. Same goes for Pink Floyd's Meddle and The Final Cut. All three albums I listen too from front to back, at minimum once a year, on what would be his birthday.
My experience is far from singular, in my circles apparently the norm, so theres something for you to set aside for later.
Some of the tropes about aging are true. I AM more patient, understanding and forgiving now, and I'm grateful for all that as well.
I am not however, and if anything I've swung hard the other way, growing more conservative. I was raised on the lie of Meritocracy, the looting from economic Neo-liberalism, Orwellian language from deceitful institutions (Department of Defense instead of War - they changed it in 1946, Department of Justice - as much as you can afford anyway, "Protect and Serve" - the property owners, not the community, or guarding food laden dumpsters during the pandemic so people can get free food. Fucking EVIL). I've watched everyone get more poor and normal social reinvestment, think infrastructure, slow to a crawl and now everything is falling apart. Inflation is a lie, it's a tool used to destroy any savings we might have stashed away from the greedy, cancer class.
Retirement is a carrot in a stick. We won't have it, if this round of inflation doesn't make that obvious. Idk why my parents and then Gen X aren't up in fucking arms that bc if inflation their hourly now is most likely the same value or less their wage when they started working. How do you go your whole life without a raise? Just to get your retirement stolen inches from the end?
Better to die on your feet than live on yr knees. My retirement is dying in the revolution.
I hope to watch it all die a swift, permanent and unresurrectable death.
Lol. I clearly missed the growing more conservative memo. Like, if we were to start over, from scratch, almost no part of society would we remake how it is now. That's all the surmising I need.
@sugar_in_your_tea probably a bit of a mixture given that she still has hit singles, but it seems to me that fan bases tend to age alongside musicians.
The teen girls I know are into Doja Cat and Black Pink etc.
The people who like the music I liked as a teen are mostly my age.
Interesting.
I'm in my 30s and I like Black Pink (kinda), but that's probably because my wife is Korean and they're the most tolerable/unique of the K-Pop artists imo (I found them before they got big in my area). I also like Gukkasten (amazing voice), and that's about it for Korean music. I mostly listen to classic rock (not my era or my parents') and recent indie music (largely ska and punk, but lots of other random stuff).
At least in my circle, the people that listen to mostly today's music are young people. People in their 20s and 30s tend to pick and choose from different eras, older people (>50) listen to their era of music, and 40s are more hit and miss and often influenced by their kids. At least that's what I observe.
Spotify and YouTube have made it a lot easier to sample from a lot of different eras, it's not just whatever is on the radio.
Naw, her music has only gotten better over time. I think your biases are showing.
I'm not sure which biases you're referring to. I enjoy listening to pop music from every era, but not every artist from every era. I just found TS's music uninteresting some 10 years ago and haven't bothered keeping up with her latest music. I found Meghan Trainor more interesting back in the 2010s, and I still think she's interesting today.
But I'll give her new music a listen, I'm always looking for new music to try.
Clearly at least 13,0000 are not.
13,000 every 30 minutes. That's a mindblowing amount
isn't she the one that had every single song in the top 10 or something
IDK, I don't listen to pop. Apparently neither do my friends or coworkers, because pretty much nobody mentions her.
Do people mention pop music/musicians in general? It tends to be stuff that goes completely over my radar so I don't know, but I feel like it's usually not the kind of music people really talk about. My experience with things like prog rock, metal, indie rock, a lot of electronic music, etc, is that people tend to discuss the songwriting, the riffs, the sound design, and so on, but pop music's generally felt like something that people stop thinking about the moment the next song comes on on the radio.
Either way, I'm aware of Taylor Swift and that she's incredibly popular but I can't have heard more than four or five of her songs ever, and I can't remember any of them. I remember something about a screaming goat meme being made out of one of her songs about a decade ago, if that counts! I guess I just move in completely different musical circles.
I'd wager the prevalence of music streaming plays a huge role in this. We're well past the age where everyone in your area was listening to the same handful of radio stations.
Oh, absolutely! Everyone's in their own bubbles these days (and few people more than me, honestly - my tastes are pretty damn niche). But I also think there's probably just less to discuss about most pop music because it's kind of just the musical status quo. That's not to say it's lesser - if people enjoy it then it's doing what it's supposed to - but it doesn't tend to have noteworthy musicianship, songwriting, technical details, etc, that are worth bringing up in conversation, and it doesn't tend to stand out in a "you have to listen to this, I guarantee you've never heard anything like it!" kind of way.
Kinda. We talk about a lot of currently popular musicians, such as:
But Taylor Swift never comes up, unless there was some weird story at a concert or something. I rarely talk about pop (again, not my thing), but I honestly couldn't tell you any song by Taylor Swift from the past 5 years.
She had 3 different albums in the top ten at the same time.
They were like 15 years ago. Her fandom is like 30 now
They are, only white trash listen to her
I don't even listen to her but this has got to be the dumbest take I've ever seen.