Breaking Up with Taylor Swift
(and 90% of the famous people we enjoy)
It’s overwhelming. This realization.
We’re part of a world that has created oodles of joy, fun, beauty, and innovation, Yet, on the other hand, a world that sustains itself through colonization, patriarchy, structural oppression, and mercenary values— all fueled by the distracting allure of consumerism.
The Met Gala was only one of the glaring contrasts our world displayed in 2024. Sure, it’s an obvious one, almost too easy to talk about— celebrities posing in obscenely expensive clothes while Rafah is being carpet bombed. Smaller versions of this contrast exist every day— celebration juxtaposed with unimaginable horrors all around the world. So why now?
Because it took a live streaming of genocide for half a year for the world to start to realise all the skeletons we’ve kept out of the mainstream. Because we’ve been collectively traumatized by images of violence we couldn’t have conceived of in our wildest fictions of villainy, not even in the Hunger Games.
But that’s not the biggest reason. The biggest reason is that all this violence is still NOT enough for us to say stop! Capitalism’s most glorious distractions are normalising silence and calling a genocide a “conflict.” Like it’s a pretty little lover’s quarrel that we must all just look away from till they sort it out.
Wait, aren’t we allowed to have any fun?
Why would boycotting our favorite brands and celebrities make a difference? Swifties swoon for the angst of Taylor Swift's songs. We are obsessed with the timelessness of Nicole Kidman. We sing Elton John songs at karaoke, we dance to Justin Timberlake, and we love us some Rihanna. So why are we calling in the millions for a digital guillotine to deplatform celebrities?
Because Rihanna isn't holding out her umbrella for the voices that need it the most. And Taylor, you give voice to all the heartbreak of the world with your songs. If you wanted to say something for Palestine, you could even do it/With a broken heart. All of us, no matter how small or large our spheres of influence, we all have the ethical obligation to use our voices and our votes and our money against injustice.
Hailey Kalil’s 9-minute TikTok apology for her insensitive “let them eat cake” video, unsupported viral claims of Kim Kardashian losing 3 million followers, and Lizzo’s late scramble under fan pressure to fundraise for Gaza, Sudan & the Congo, notwithstanding, perhaps celebs of Taylor Swift’s following won’t even notice if you block them on social media.
Just as our money pays for the brands we use, so does our engagement on social media platforms contribute to the prominence and influence of celebrities. That is the power we have as consumers of capitalism and culture.
But the point is not to see some miracle change or utopia instantly. The point isn’t even to see change in our own lifetimes. #blockout2024 might not make a dent in a celebrity culture that values some lives over others, but it’s a start. Change won’t come from any one human, any one policy, or any one action. It will come from understanding that love is political. That peace is code for non-resistance against the oppressive status-quo.
Change will come from sitting with our own discomfort and giving up parts of ourselves.
Taking a stance and blocking or boycotting your favorite celebs and brands is hard, mostly because a piece of them is built into our memories, into our identities. If we block them, it’s like we reject ourselves as well. But maybe this is the lesson. It’s not about the individual (with all their fame and platform) who is silent, it’s about the very system that creates people of influence who can’t call out the system that put them there.
So yes, we can and must reject parts of ourselves that have normalized cruelty, oppression, starvation, and violence. We must interrogate how we’ve made room for such a culture to exist. We must examine our own biases and notice how eager we are to preach our values, but how quickly we slink away and say “It’s complicated,” or “I don’t know enough,” when the truth is asking us to give up too much of ourselves.
You don’t have to be perfect. Pick a few people you looked up to who are either actively supporting a genocide or have stayed quiet about ongoing humanitarian crises around the world and let them go. While you’re at it, let go of a few of your favourite brands that are actively funding the genocide (this handy app helps you identify them.) Be consistent with whatever you choose. Perfection is not the goal, the shaping of our collective integrity is.
We leave you with John Lennon’s Imagine:
You may say I'm a dreamer / But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us / And the world will be as one
Even if prominent performers of this song have forgotten what it stands for, we mustn’t forget. We must remember, reimagine, and recreate the ways we come together in solidarity and find joy. Of course we can. This is the miracle of being human.
