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So Ridiculous: NFL Fans Reacted Angrily and criticized Taylor Swift after her endorsement ” Someone who’s addicted to alcohol can’t give political advice,focus on music and your toy boy Travis Kelce”
Taylor Swift has just endorsed Kamala Harris – but it’s not just her vote Harris is after, it’s her millions of fans.
Weeks before Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris on Instagram, the gears had already begun to turn Swift’s millions of fans into bona-fide Harris voters.
Soon after Harris announced her intention to run for president, Irene Kim, 29, who spends as many as 14 hours a day talking to fellow Swifties online and has attended more than five of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour concerts, sprung into action. Along with other mega-fans who supported Harris, they created social media accounts, memes, montages, and newsletters, all in a bid to help their favourite candidate win the election.
I’ve been going inside the world of the Swifties ahead of the Presidential vote for the second season of BBC Radio 4’s podcast Why Do You Hate Me USA. Subscribe to the podcast for episodes soon. I’ll be investigating how the online world of social media is shaping the US election. And when it comes to social media, Taylor Swift supporters are considered leaders of the pack.
Now the executive director of the Swifties for Kamala campaign, Ms Kim decided to get involved because she wants the US to see its first female president and believes Kamala Harris will “protect our rights, the rights of our friends, our family members”.
With more than 3,500 volunteers, the Swifties for Kamala would seem like an experienced political operation. The group has even raised over $165,000 (£126,000) for the campaign since they began tracking donations from 1 August.
But Ms Kim, who says she has never participated in political campaigning like this before, thinks everyone came together in a really “natural” way. They’re using the skills she says they’ve developed – from strategising how to buy tickets for the sold-out Eras tour and auctioning off merchandise like signed Taylor Swift records – to try and swing an election.
The Swifties for Kamala group is volunteer-led and independent of the Harris campaign, but they have been in touch.
The conversations are “surprisingly more casual than you would expect”, Ms Kim tells me. They aren’t entirely about the online world either – they’re about translating that into real-world action.
“They’re [the campaign] helping facilitate things like volunteer sign-ups and helping us coordinate volunteer training,” Ms Kim says. Not just for in-person canvassing but also text and phone banking.
“We can make requests. We really wanted a photo of Doug [Kamala’s husband] standing behind Kamala so we could do the like ‘he lets her bejewelled’ joke.”
The BBC reached out to the Harris campaign for comment, but did not get a response.
The online world is a key battleground for both campaigns, and memes and videos from supporters that feel more authentic than paid-for ads could be effective at reaching younger, disengaged voters.
The army of Swifties could also be a way for the Harris campaign to go head-to-head with Donald
Trump’s already very active base of supporters online. They operate a bit like a fandom too, and have proved effective at pushing out endless memes and pictures for the former president. Endorsements from – for example – tech boss Elon Musk have also sent Musk’s devoted army of followers on X Trump’s way too.
All of that keeps Donald Trump at the top of some social media feeds. But that can backfire.
In one meme, which the former president shared on social media, an AI generated image of Swift endorsed Trump.
In her Instagram post endorsing Kamala Harris, Taylor Swift specifically cited misleading images of her supporting Trump as a reason to speak now.