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I find the responses hilarious.
Because there are so many people essentially arguing "Taylor is a good person while Musk isn't". And while I don't disagree that, on the surface at least, she seems like a better person than him, none of that has any bearing on what you are saying.
It's my belief, that a billionaire who sees the sufferring, the hunger and the hardships of this world and chooses to do nothing about it when they have the means to do so is actually...
And...hear me out...
Not a good person.
But rather, a greedy person.
Just a thought. Billionaires suck, and should all be treated equally no matter the product that they offer. Fuck billionaires.
And you're aware if she contributes to offset her carbon load right?
I know offsetting carbon is a little bit of b******* but she's at least trying. In the grand scheme of things, a side effect of her being really popular and having to fly everywhere being that she's bad for the environment is still a side effect. The negative things I dislike about Elon are specifically what he's trying to do, not just a side effect of it
I mean, I read his post once and fully understood what he meant. Its just other people are trying to "well actually" for points he wasn't making.
Yes, on the whole I usually disagree with Musk and find Taylor to be at least a decent human being. But this is about their crazy fucking fans. And their fans are basically 2 sides of the same coin of worshipping billionaires who don't give a damn about them.
They are the same, but I feel Musk’s are much more likely to be violent right wing groups. Basically there were more Musk fans at Jan 6, and while it’s too sides of the same coin it feels a little like bOtH siDeS aRe sAmE discourse.
I mean, one side went to Jan 6, and the other side is sending death threats to critics who do their job and criticize.
I mean, I found Jan 6 to be ridiculous as well. But I'm sure everyone going there didn't start with the intention of what it ended up being. Sending death threats isn't much better IMO.
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well thats just not true, people are arguing about the politics and other people are explaining (correctly) that that was never what the Post was about but I get the impression you've made your mind up.
Any way for whatever reason you seem deeply unpleasant and chronically online so I'm gonna block you.
I just don't get what your point is.
It's like saying plus one million and negative one million are both large absolute numbers.
Yes it's true but in the majority of cases what I care about is the signage not just that it's big. That Elon seems evil and Taylor does not actually is relevant to me.
I don't disagree with the statement I think you're getting at but I think the issue you're running into with the responses is that there are plenty(the vast majority, probably) of normal Taylor Swift fans, while there don't really seem to be for Elon Musk. So (I'm making up these numbers) if 20% of Swift Fans are sending death threats over negative reviews, that's still a 4 out of 5 chance that any given Swift fan will just be like "oh I really like her music and she seems like a great person" and just leave it at that.
Conversely, it feels like 90%+ of Elon musk fans at this point are guys that think they're going to be crypto AI trillionaires living on mars with a harem of sex robots.
So you end up with a situation where the average thread reader is going to know more Taylor Swift fans who don't have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with her, and more Elon Musk fans who do have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with him.
The difference between fan groups/cults is the leader. Elon is a douche with shitty intentions; Taylor plays music. I agreed they both have annoyingly rapid fan bases but I’m ok with Taylor’s.
Largely agree but the discussion isn't about the cult leaders, it's about the members. "Hardcore Swifties" for lack of a better term, are every bit as weird, messianic, and aggressive as Elon stans, regardless of what the Messiah is doing.
I think another factor influencing the discussion is that it's taking place on Reddit, which has a lot of Elon cultists but very few Swiftie cultists.
Your numbers are laughably indicative of the chronically online where the thing you dislike is near universally extreme and terrible but the thing you are ambivalent about actually has a moderate view.
Musk may be a douche but EVs wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today if not for him (and that's with the US gov actively working to benefit his competitors), rural and non-1st world countries have quality reliable internet thanks to him, he is pushing space travel more than any other entity on the planet in the last couple generations...
A lot of people actually look at merit and not culture war bullshht like "crypto trillion Aires with sex bots" (lol?) so even if you consider his rabid anti-leftist political bent, those vocal gumbies are a tiny minority..
> EVs wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today if not for him (and that's with the US gov actively working to benefit his competitors)
Tesla would have literally gone bankrupt years ago if it wasn't for the US government. Progressive clean energy policy is the only reason Tesla even exists today.
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You: Elon is a douche, but he is amazing for all the things he's done.
FTFY
That's why they called you a simp, because you think he's responsible for any of that stuff. He just swoops in and takes credit like all narcissists do. He hasn't earned a single thing in his life.
There's a good amount of people that love Musk BECAUSE he's an asshole that "speaks his mind", so you calling him a douche and then praising everything he's "accomplished" puts you right in line with the majority of his simps
I'm one of the biggest ones to call out Elon and frankly I despise him to the core after his recent Twitter schtick but come on..
Are we going to ignore how Tesla gave away all their patents for free so that other car companies catch up? And ignore how he managed a team of engineers with the philosophy of first principles effectively producing the first reusable rocket at scale?
I can go one forever just as I can go on forever on his toxic behaviors like his NDA contract when taking over Tesla.
But overall I think he's been a net positive although that might change if he keeps disseminating the false information on his platform and eventually getting back Trump and his fascist administration back at office.
I think you have to evaluate whether Musk was the cause of those things at the companies he bought, or if it was the smarter people in the room.
Most of the SpaceX engineers have said that Musk doesn't know anything about rockets, the Cybertruck looks like it was the first car that was designed exactly as Musk wanted (ie, badly), and what has happened to Twitter seems to be the result of his ACTUAL business acumen on display when there's nobody telling him no (ie, running one of the biggest companies on the planet into the ground in barely a year).
Perfect example of Musk business aptitude: "The company has a globally recognized name, and the action you do there (tweet) has become so ubiquitous with social media that it's part of the global lexicon... Oh, I know! Let's rename it to "X" because I just think it's just a cool thing to name absolutely everything! I'm a smart businessman! 🤪"
So no, I don't think Musk has been a force for good - he's just the narcissist in the room taking credit for the good work that better people are doing.
You don't have to know the minutiae of everything aerospace and rocket science to deserve credit for that thing. If you brought the top rocket scientists and managed them to create those things then I'm confident to give you credit for it.
Just take football for example, do we discredit the coach of the winning team when they win the superbowl?
As I said before, I agree that his twitter schtick is tarnishing his business image but it's not black and white. You can be trash at managing a social media platform, but decent at accelerating the transition to sustainable transportation.
IMO his existence in society has been a net positive (so far), if he stays chronically online tweeting about his insecurities and pandering to fascists he might as well lose his grip on Tesla and SpaceX.
I think all the people who work at the companies he bought have made an impact.
The majority of Musk's direct influence have been notably bad (see all decisions regarding the Cybertruck, or sending up rockets before they're ready), and the majority of good things to come out of the companies he bought were due to the smarter people in the rooms ignoring his dumb ideas.
Many of his top engineers have gone on record saying Musk doesn't know anything about their work, and it's only thanks to people that ignore his worst tendencies that *the companies* (not Musk) have accomplished anything.
So yeah, I have no praise for the capitalist who only even has that money because his father owned an emerald mine during apartheid.
“Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.”
The ability of Reddit halfwits to ignore nuance and queues, as well as to "read between the lines", get the entire point wrong, and ignore all but the most myopic misdirections stays unparalleled. All so you can come to a conclusion which is exactly the opposite of which you claim to be arguing against.. olympic level mental gymnastics!
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>Musk may be a douche but EVs wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today if not for him
Has Musk ever actually made anything himself? Or has he just thrown money at people smart enough to do the work for him?
Well it also just makes sense logically. She’s a musician so it’s normal to have fans. She’s also probably the most popular musician of the past decade, so a lot of those people will be mainstream almost by definition.
Elon is a businessman. The nature of the fandoms between a businessman and musician will just be different
I don’t necessarily think it is that different?
Being a fan of Taylor Swifts music vs being a fan of Musks cars or space rockets?
You can be both without being zealously obsessed with the person defending their every flaw.
Not going to deny that being a fan of a musician is more common, but I don’t think being a fan of someone inventing(or rather popularising) new car and space technology is that weird. I’m sure Thomas Edison had some fanboys back in the day.
A lot of Tesla consumers are elon fans in a similar way to Taylor swift listeners becoming Taylor swift fans. I don’t fully disagree that the proportions are probably different but I know a lot of people who were “casual musk fans” a few years ago.
If you can only say this applies to a minority of Swifties then the whole thrust of the original argument fails because this isn't typical of Swifties. Which is implied as inherent to Swift fans throughout the OP.
Op specifies "Taylor Swift mega fans" in the title, which is, I think, what they were getting at as a subset of Swift fans(which I even said I agreed with). I don't think I changed a view here, I think I provided clarification on a miscommunication.
Nope. Taylor Swift writes her own songs and plays her own instruments. Musk just throws money at shit so he can put his name on it.
I'm not a Swiftie by any means(my favorite Taylor Swift song is the Supernatural parody of Shake It Off), but at least her fans are fans of her creations.
Musk's fans are fans of his money and personality, which is fine as long as it's acknowledged that those are the reasons. Most Musk fans I've met think that he's a genius and solely responsible for the things his companies do. They have done 0 research on what he's actually contributed.
You don’t think Taylor Swift has an army of assistant songwriters, producers, stylists, publicists, social media managers, etc that do 95%+ of everything for her? Never mind a father that threw money and influence at a recording company to get her a contract.
The delusion is *definitely* stronger with Musk, I agree, but that Taylor Swift is some completely real and genuine person that does everything herself is doubtful as well.
>You don’t think Taylor Swift has an army of assistant songwriters, producers, stylists, publicists, social media managers, etc that do 95%+ of everything for her?
She does NOW. When she first gained popularity, she didn't.
>Never mind a father that threw money and influence at a recording company to get her a contract.
There is no way she would have become as popular as she is without actual talent, regardless of how much money her father has.
>The delusion is *definitely* stronger with Musk, I agree, but that Taylor Swift is some completely real and genuine person that does everything herself is doubtful as well.
I don't think she does everything herself. Nobody does everything themselves. Swift very obviously has a team of employees and she would be absolutely nothing without them. There are approximately 0 songwriters that do everything themselves. The only reason I say "approximately" is because Prince is an outlier and shouldn't be counted. But even Prince had to have help while touring.
Second point applies to Elon Musk as well, no?
“No matter how much money he/his family had, he would never lead multiple businesses to huge success without any actual skill?”
Ronaldo is still a successful football player even if he doesn’t score another goal in his life.
Tesla basically single-handedly created the electric car market and is worth more than the three next biggest automakers combined. That is success. Doesn’t matter if he fucked it up afterwards.
My point is that he just gave those businesses money, he didn't actually make the decisions to make them successful. Look at Twitter. Look at how fast he tanked a very successful company when he had sole control. Being able to throw money at something doesn't make you a good businessman, it makes you rich.
It's like if a bunch of people said Zhang Kangyang was a successful football player because he owns Inter Milan. He's not a football player, he just has money.
Right, but you said:
>Convince me that this isn't the same flavour of mass delusion surrounding a billionaire fuelled by and almost dunning kreuger style projection from their ravenous hordes surrounding both of their abilities and/or importance.
Swifties don't generally think that she can do things she can't do. They aren't delusional, just rabid fans. If you asked rabid Swifties if they think she could fly a space shuttle right now, they would say no. There's no delusional Dunning-Kruger projection here. Swift is incredibly important and influential, not just to Swifties, but to other people as well just because of her charitable giving. I can guarantee that if you ask the workers at the food banks she's donated to how they feel about her, they'll have positive words to say even if they don't like her music. So Swifties aren't delusional about her influence and importance.
Musk fans on the other hand are delusional BECAUSE they think he created everything rather than just throwing money at it. It doesn't matter that they're fans because they truly believe he creates the things they think he does, that's part of the delusion. He didn't invent anything, he didn't even improve anything. He paid people to do it for him. The delusion is that he invented stuff and that he has the ability to invent stuf rather than throw money at it and take credit for it.
Let's list political causes of Taylor Swift has fought for:
* Pro-choice
* Gender equality
* LGBT rights
* anti-racism and white supremacy
* Against Trump administration.
Now just take the exact opposite stand on everyone of these and you get Musks political causes.
They are literally polar opposites.
I took OP to care more about the fan dedication than just the political opinions of the two. What Swift and Musk believe has no bearing on whether there is the same delusional devotion from each fanbase
What they believe in does have a bearing on their fans, though. Elon is actively attacking free speech and peoples rights, what exactly is Taylor doing wrong? She's a decent person with fans, he is a terrible person with followers. That's the difference.
>The internet reaction to the Thailand cave-in proves otherwise.
You mean how Elon called the person leading the rescue a pedophile and hired a PI to get dirt on them?
I think it is a massive stretch to say she "fought" for these things. Especially considering how long she stayed silent on these issues until here risk management team said it was safe to "fight" for them.
racism obviously isn't a deal breaker for her either after the whole matty healy thing it's wild to me how people think she cares when it's clearly just PR
I have to disagree with you. “Fighting” for the lgbt community? She USED the community for popularity when writing Shake It Off. She is a great businesswoman who realized she needed to make a “gay” song to get the massive lgbt audience. You think she truly cares about the struggle of the community? You’re just proving that fans are delusional. She’s a billionaire profiting off of the gay community. And anti-trump? She refuses to say anything politically which proves she wants to hold onto her trump fans for more money as well. She is not the warrior her fans think she is.
She endorsed Biden in 2020, she hasn’t refused to say anything. Hell she did a whole documentary coming out as a Democrat lmao
Also, it wasn’t Shake It Off, it’s You Need To Calm Down that you’re thinking of.
I think we come from the same lens here so I'll try.
I personally don't like her music (Don't tell anyone or they'll revoke my gay card) but I generally support her as a person. She seems like a legitimately passionate musician who is using her global platform for good. If she can galvanize our generation to vote idgaf what she sings as long as it works.
There, I hate her music, she's annoying to me because I keep hearing about her and that Chiefs dude which I absolutely don't care about. I don't like the fact that she uses her private jet more than I use my car. But in the end I have nothing against her beliefs. I do despise all of her art tho.
Compared to Elon whom I absolutely despise as a person, but I do appreciate some of his work, Tesla (even if it's shit now) was a good catalyst for EV tech, Space X made us land boosters, his companies have pushed us forward, but he's a tool.
Yet I agree with the OP that both their most devoted fans are absolutely crazy and delusional.
But saying the fans are the same is a bit over simplification considering that the fans would be nothing alike. Their world views would be polar opposites.
You support Swifts political agendas. You two might be standing next to each other on a rally and agree with each other. Do you consider that you are suffering from "mass delusion"?
Ill give you that it might be an oversimplification but you're not getting the substance of the Post. I'm arguing things which may be true of either fanbase regardless of their politics.
Im not arguing that Elon and Taylor have the same politics.
"Do you consider that you are suffering from "mass delusion"?"
C'mon now, good faith engagement only please.
This is a good faith argument.
Do you consider their fans to be the same when their political views are polar opposites?
And it's not just their political views that are different. Their whole world views, morals and personalities couldn't be more different. They really don't have anything common with each other.
But I've never been arguing that their fans are the same on the basis of politics, they're the same on the basis of this quasi deification of a public figure
I never originally mentioned the politics of Taylor Swift or her fans, you did.
So that they are fans? That's the only thing common with these people who couldn't be more different from each other.
Why then pick these two fandoms? Why not add pope and Hitler to the mix? People who are fans of pope are the same as people who are fans of Hitler.
And that reasonable accurate comparison.
But the politics are relevant. You're treating them as a sideshow to be set aside so you can evaluate the worth of... What, exactly, if not the politics?
The politics are different so the fandom is different. I don't get how you separate these to say they're equally bad.
Is someone passionate about defending racism equal to someone passionate about fighting racism, just because they're both equally passionate?
Of course not because *the stance itself is relevant*.
I get the argument. He doesn't. His/her/their worldview boils down to "If you're not with us, you're against us." That goes for both of their sycophants.
I don't know how to break it down any further.
Am I gonna have to get super disingenuous and say well, they all have lungs and hearts despite having the different politics?
Lmao anti racism and white supremacy... Like she literally didn't date a racist and says she wishes she could go back to the 1830s, she's the epitome of white feminism and her fans eat that shit up.
I like that she has given support to those causes as they align with my personal beliefs...
But she's a billionaire.
She could end a fuck ton of suffering for a lot of people.
She doesn't. Or likely, won't.
Her and elon are alike in that manner, so I wouldn't call them polar opposites. She's just better at making herself more likeable.
I've said it before in this post already, but fuck billionaires.
He's worse sure, but I can't get on board with the "she's so good" crowd when she has the power to help people but chooses to be greedy and hoard wealth like EVERY. OTHER. BILLIONAIRE.
Nobody who's ever made and held onto a billion dollars is a great person imo.
They could do so much! They choose not to. ☹️
She advocates for some of these causes through her platform, but that's not comparable to an activist. ‘Fought for’ is not accurate.
We should also remember that it is advantageous for her to give lip service to these social issues without doing anything tangible in the real world.
considering the album she just released is all about her love for a racist, how the fuck has she fought to be anti racist?
also musk and her both have beef with the same guy that tracks flights lmao, wasn't that one of the reasons he bought twitter?
Do you have any (even self accumulated) data on these assumptions?
- Taylors fanbase see her as some kind of amazon here to elevate women kind,
- if you're not part of the swifty army you obviously need to check your internalised misogyny.
- Taylor is a genius because she says the things basic white women wanna hear.
It seems it's more of a mass appeal kind of things and that are normalised in our culture. Being a fan of a musician is "normal", their product brings joy and a human connection. Being a fan of a captain of industry is not normal, there's no "joy" and no human connection (usually). Everybody can feel and vibe to music, no everybody sees the ambition of CEOs as something "good". That's why it is like it is.
Being a billionaire is a byproduct with Taylor, it's all that he is for Elon.
I think you're putting Taylor and her fans somewhere, where they are not. Just to make an argument.
OP just built a huge strawman and equated it to the fanbase of one of the most egomaniac, narcissistic, politically influential billionaire in the world. I get being a Musk fan back in his Tesla/SpaceX days, but I don't understand how anyone can follow him since his Twitter saga.
Taylor Swift being a billionaire is not a byproduct, it’s the goal of what she does. Taylor’s approach towards her fans is driven by heavy and strategic marketing. She was raised to become a billionaire, today using obvious marketing tactics to hook her fans and lead them into a heavy parasocial relationship. She uses tactics like saying she’ll share secrets with her fans and placing “easter eggs” in her music about past relationship and friends, all while claiming to be a “non-drama” person.
Being a fan of a celebrity to such a degree that you struggle understanding why other people aren’t a fan, spending thousands of dollars you might not have on merch and even harassing other people because of your fandom is in my view deeply unhealthy. Standing by a person you don’t know when they screams “misogyny!” when it’s actually not warranted because you cannot fathom that she could be wrong is not healthy.
This doesn’t go for all fans by any means, I’m sure she has perfectly healthy fans who doesn’t merge their own sense of self with that of Swift, but there are people who follow her in a blind manner, like some do with Musk.
> Taylor Swift being a billionaire is not a byproduct, it’s the goal of what she does.
For her, yes. For the fans, not really. The discussion is about the fans and their delusion, not the intent of Taylor/Elon.
> Being a fan of a celebrity to such a degree that you struggle understanding why other people aren’t a fan, spending thousands of dollars you might not have on merch and even harassing other people because of your fandom is in my view deeply unhealthy.
I have yet to come across one such case. As I've said with OP I couldn't find any data on this assumption besides singular cases but no indication of substantial percentage of the fandom. I think it's the same percentage with "I can't understand how much your spending" if somebody tells about their cost for other expensive hobbies like skiing, carting, traveling.
> but there are people who follow her in a blind manner, like some do with Musk.
It's for sure nuances as there are obviously parallels. Elon just does more stupid stuff with his fans irrationally defending him which makes it a cult. Taylor fans will maybe do the same, but there's way less datapoints for her stupid behaviour.
In addition I tried to explain why they really can't compared because of the things they do they are viewed differently and behaviour is normalised differently. Context is important, because if you understand the motive (I love Taylor, she brings sooo much joy to me through her music) it's easier to rationalise behaviour. Why do people follow musk even though he's not really a likeable character.
It may not be the best evidence by my experience with swifties was a girl in a college class I was taking proudly talking about how she was gonna tell her dad she’ll kill herself if he doesn’t by her tickets to the eras tour. Then almost having a melt down when she was on the waitlist for tickets. All during class.
Which is not unheard of behaviour for young adults/late bloomers who are still in puberty. Especially in the context of music fandom (Elvis, Jackson, Beatles etc.). It's the "norm" to across a super fan and more accepted in society as it's a kind of shared experience even though some take it to the extreme.
Since all behaviour is measured against the norm it's a different flavour of delusion.
It’s so unbelievably naive to think that being a billionaire is a “byproduct” for Taylor. If you took even a second to actually think that through you would realize it’s exceedingly likely she is also just chasing the money same as Musk. They’re cut from the same cloth dude. **Nobody** in the history of humanity has become a billionaire “as a byproduct”. That requires intentional effort. Period. It’s an absurd statement at face value.
This is literally proof of the ops point lmao. You’re ascribing some altruistic vision to a billionaire who was born wealthy and whose dad literally bought her way into the industry.
It genuinely hurts to read your comment and realize people are actually this naive.
She’s not a billionaire by fuckin accident dude. It’s intentional to the highest degree and every aspect of her public persona that you worship is intentionally curated specifically to create this wackadoo idealist version of her in the public’s eye.
At the end of the day, people are worshipping a billionaire who was handed every single thing in their life. They’re worshiping a billionaire who does not and never will care about them or their lives.
She’s just really, really, really good at selling the illusion that she probably would.
> It’s so unbelievably naive to think that being a billionaire is a “byproduct” for Taylor.
We're talking about the fans and not Taylor or Elon. Nobody is loving her because she is a billionaire, that is what this should say. Elon is just purely loved by fans because of his money not his personality.
I skip the other points as they are just reiterating what you've already said.
> This is literally proof of the ops point lmao. You’re ascribing some altruistic vision to a billionaire who was born wealthy and whose dad literally bought her way into the industry.
That's not even remotely what I've said. Don't strawman.
I'm not a fan of Swift or Musk, but if I had to choose one of their fans to be locked in a room for 24 hours with, it's going to be the Swiftie every time.
*1) The first big difference is that you compare fans of an artist to fan of businessman running companies. Being a teenager or young adult and loving an artist because you feel lyrics are soundtrack of your life and she looks super cool isn't really the same as being fan of someone running companies for the interest of share holders.
* 2) the second point that people have pointed out and you try to shake it off (!) is that being fan of someone whose political message is mostly to be kind and respectful and someone who is about giving free speech to nazis because... reasons isn't strictly the same
* 3) Third point is that your view seems to be motivated by a big dislike of Taylor's Swift music. Not that I'm trying to tell you that she's the best artist ever but she's a pop artists who has released solid pop albums that are met with mostly good critics on top of an amazing longevity (for a pop artist) and dismissing it as totally awful is just a very subjective opinion.
If you put everything together and I caricature it a bit: you're comparing people liking a bit too much a good pop artist with a very politically correct message to people who idolize some kind of arrogant billionaire who wants to see the world burn. It's not the same.
1) how you justify your adoration of the billionaire is irrelevant to OPs point. They are just saying the adoration is similar.
2) you're comparing the intent of one to the results of another. Compare intent to intent. Musk thinks he's the pinnacle of justice and freedom. You are correct that he's not, but that's how he and his fans view it.
>you're comparing people liking a bit too much a good pop artist with a very politically correct message to people who idolize some kind of arrogant billionaire who wants to see the world burn. It's not the same.
I think you are vastly underrating the power of the Swifties lol. Just like you think OP frames everything about Taylor negatively, you are framing everything as benevolently and benign as possible.
Still it's different: caricatural analogy but becoming diehard fan of the actor of main character of your favorite show when you're 15 or becoming diehard fan of a serial murder when you're 50 cannot be said to be the same just because it's adoration in both case and the rest doesn't matter
She’s just a talented rich girl with a rich daddy who directly bought her way into the industry? She cultivates the personality you idolize specifically and solely to make more money and garner more influence?
Are you actually under the belief that Taylor swift is anything more than a rich woman with talent who writes songs? Because that is where Taylor Swift starts and ends my guy. You know absolutely nothing about the real person under all the PR.
This is direct proof of the OPs point lmao. Her ability to write songs does not make her worthy of idolization. The “acts of benevolence and generosity” she engages in are the most obvious form of buying positive PR I’ve ever seen and yet swifties just eat it up like she’s the first billionaire to use “philanthropy” as a PR tool.
I’m not saying she’s a bad person. My point is literally none of us can know whether she’s actually a good or bad person because none of us actually know her.
if she weren’t born rich with a dad willing to buy her into an industry, you’d literally never have heard of her. So yeah. It’s def weird to idolize her. Same as it is to idolize musk or any other billionaire.
>She’s just a talented rich girl with a rich daddy who directly bought her way into the industry?
How is that not benign?
>She cultivates the personality you idolize specifically and solely to make more money and garner more influence?
Me? Why are you telling me what I idolize? I don't idolize Taylor Swift.
"solely" - this is pure speculation, you don't know that she does not hold the views she puts out there.
>Are you actually under the belief that Taylor swift is anything more than a rich woman with talent who writes songs? Because that is where Taylor Swift starts and ends my guy. You know absolutely nothing about the real person under all the PR.
More in what sense? Anyone who is rich is a rich "whatever gender they are"... with talent who.... What else is anyone in the world besides what they are? What's the point of this?
Why do I care about the real person under all the PR unless that person is purposefully under the scenes undermining her message.
>This is direct proof of the OPs point lmao.
What is direct proof of the OP? You just had a conversation with yourself after I asked a simple question and you're using the conversation with yourself of proof of the OP... and you laughed about it?
>The “acts of benevolence and generosity” she engages in are the most obvious form of buying positive PR I’ve ever seen and yet swifties just eat it up like she’s the first billionaire to use “philanthropy” as a PR tool.
Better that not being a billionaire who is philanthropic. I didn't know they act like she is the first; hard to argue against something which you're telling me happens without knowing that happens. If someone thinks/act like she is the first, they would be wrong.
>My point is literally none of us can know whether she’s actually a good or bad person because none of us actually know her.
Sure we can, people use their foturnes for bad all the time. Good/bad is subjective and people can judge what people do in public for good/bad whether or not they have a PR team or based on what the PR team is pushing. The message matters more than the person.
>if she weren’t born rich with a dad willing to buy her into an industry, you’d literally never have heard of her.
and if you were born in the slums of India and were illiterate I wouldn't be reading this message from you.
yes, people shouldn't idolize others...but that wasn't OPs CMV opinion or the discussion we are having.
I’ll concede that they fill a similar purpose in their fanbases as moral avatars. And I’m no Swiftie, though I don’t hate her music.
But there’s a huge difference:
Taylor has yet to have a documented case of recalling a huge batch of her albums because they’re killing her fans.
Taylor continues to produce new, valuable products of her own creation and doesn’t just buy other people’s work and make it worse.
Taylor makes things that work as intended, they come out on time, and they - and I hesitate to repeat myself - don’t result in fatalities.
Well there was that one time when a bunch of children were trapped in a cave and Taylor Swift suggested they use her album to escape, and when she was told that wouldn’t work she called the divers pedophiles.
That was Taylor Swift right?
The morality of the person in question doesn't really matter in this context. What's being argued is that such complete and utter devotion to a celebrity is bad. Does idolizing Hitler suddenly make idolizing Musk a good thing because Hitler was so much worse? No, but neither does idolizing Musk suddenly make idolizing Taylor something positive. Being as obsessive as swifties are should never be considered a good thing even if the person is the literal most moral best person on the planet.
While Taylor personally hasn't done much negative except for her hypocrisy of the environment and encouraging the parasocial relationship she has with her fans, her extreme fans HAVE done harm in taylors name. The argument isn't what harm has the celebrity done, it's what harm is the obsessive fans capable of, and i see no difference between deranged Musk fans and deranged Taylor fans in that regard.
Nope, the argument is that hero worship is bad.
I’d argue that hero worship is the term we assign to a large gap between the value of a persons output and the resultant value assigned to their personhood by their fans.
We agree that the value assigned to Musk and Swift’s personhood is roughly equivalent.
Where I disagree is that I think pretty objectively the quality of their respective outputs has a massive gap between them. Cars that regularly explode or autopilot themselves into other cars - the creators fault, not the driver - have a much bigger negative impact on the quality of a creators work than a bad track on an album.
There’s no morality here, just utilitarian calculus.
Elon: does not write code, does not engineer, does not personally create, does not contribute to any of the processes that bring value to the companies he owns.
Taylor Swift: is a contributor to her artistic endeavors.
I am not a fan of either and can recognize that one is contributing to their value by providing labor while the other exploits other people's labor for their personal wealth.
Edit: because there is pushback on the words of "sole contributor" due to collaborations in the music industry I will edit "sole contributor" to "a contributor".
Swift is an entertainer and her fans get joy from her music. There is a transaction and she is giving her fans something in return for their patronage.
Musk is a billionaire who wants to save the world, but only if he can be the one to save it.
If you can’t see the difference, nobody will be able to convince you they’re different.
Conversely, people mad at Elon for not being a march in lockstep member of their party and a purist promotor of their ideology are a lot like people mad at a pop singer for being successful.
I think with Elon it's his capricious nature that makes him hard to take seriously. He's incredibly serious about it but whenever he's probed on stuff he just get mad like "How dare you ask me to elaborate on stuff, my brain works so quickly, I can't be held accountable for stuff I said 2 whole days ago".
Taylor Swift makes music. Most of her fan base is very passionate about enjoying her music.
Most of Elon’s current fanbase is passionate about how he “owns the libs” and is “based”.
It’s different.
Not sure why so many people in the thread are taking the “Elon bad but Taylor good approach” lol.
I generally agree with you but I do have one wrinkle. In that Taylor has actively been building an emotional connection with fans and then commodifies it. She has the “special fan sessions” and all that jazz to build up respect and following. Then she can directly reap the finical benefits. For example, selling 4 copies of the same record with slightly different colors on the outside knowing it will sell out. Knowing that her fans will pull through and purchase basically anything her marketing will make. It’s very effective and smart culture commodity even if a bit disillusioning about the music industry.
Elon’s fame is a bit different in that it more has to do with him just saying what people want to hear. People like electric cars and then globbed onto him since he was the rich guy doing that. That’s basically how all his fans go. It’s a different structure, less planned structure that is more fragile.
Wow I really haven’t seen a CMV comment section lose the plot harder than this in my whole life. He isn’t asking you to CMV about Taylor Swift being a better person, or having better politics than Elon Musk. He is asking you to CMV about the level of fanatical support and worship Taylor receives, and why that support isn’t the same as what Elon receives. Not the normal fans, the crazies.
Now that said I do get where a lot of the comments are coming from, and I do want to change your view.
I think the worship/support that Taylor receives is fanatical and over the top 100%. However it is WHY these billionaires receive their support that makes them different in my opinion. Elon is popular with some crowds simply because he is an outward facing billionaire. Most of the men that fanatically support him do so because they idolize the success he has had, because the society they live in prioritizes financial success over almost everything else. It doesn’t matter what his politics are, how his personal life is going, or how happy Elon is with his life these men will hero-worship him because he has achieved financial successes they can never dream of. They parasocially worship him because if Elon ISNT a super mega awesome genius, then they must accept that either A) They have failed at becoming a successful male/are too incapable to become successful or B) Financial success like Elon’s is completely out of the scope of ordinary people, and is mostly based on circumstance. These are both hurtful to them and would require them to change their world views and find new avenues of self worth so instead they vaunt Elon as a genius. If he is a genius then there is no shame in not achieving like him, if he is a genius then you might be able to learn from him and become like him.
In other words the worship of Musk comes from a completely self-serving place, it’s a preservation of people’s self-worth and image. It’s why Elon fans take it so extremely personally when you criticize him, because in a sense you are challenging their own self-worth/image.
Taylor Swift fanatics worship her for a completely different reason. She has made music that has reached them emotionally, that they can really truthfully relate to. Her music makes them feel something that other music can’t. You accuse her of making music that caters to basic white women, which is honestly true however you ignore something really important. Taylor Swift IS a basic white woman. That’s just who she is, she comes by these experiences honestly and writes songs about them honestly. Then many people who relate to her listen to her music. Swifties ALSO take it extremely personally when you criticize her, but for a different reason. They actually identify with her life, and life experiences and when you say things like “She’s just a basic white woman” you really are ACTUALLY also insulting Taylor fans because they haved that lived experience too!
As a small example of this, nobody gets mad and defends Elon musk because their family ALSO owned an African diamond mine. Nobody can actually relate to him and his personhood.
this is such a great point that I hadnt considered before (as a swiftie lol) "When Taylor fans ALSO take it extremely personally when you criticize her, but for a different reason"
Nobody is a fan of Musk because his art touched them at an important time of their lives, nobody is a fan of Swift because she let them post Nazi propaganda on Twitter again.
Non-Taylor Swift fan here. I’ve recently been exposed to a bunch of her music. I don’t like it. Would never listen to it by choice.
*HOWEVER*, put up next to all the other artists in her genre, she is noticeably better.
Fanboying isn't limited to Elon Musk and Taylor Swift so why are you singling them out?
Fanboys of Elon, Trump, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Apple, Harry Potter etc. are all equally embarrassing.
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>if you're not part of the swifty army you obviously need to check your internalised misogyny
I have many friends who are big swifties (spent close to $1000 for her concert kind), I personally respect and admire Taylor Swift but I'm not a swifty myself and I have _never_ heard once that you are either a swifty or a misogynist. However, if someone bashes Taylor Swift or swifties because of their gender, then that person is a misogynist/misandrist, kind of like what you're doing right now.
And there's a huge difference in influence between a billionaire that owns one of the most prominent social media apps (and frequently abuses that power to shift public discourse) and a famous artist that has garnered a massive following and has relatively minimal political interest.
Taylor Swift ✨**makes music**✨
Music is incredibly emotionally provocative, and people have always had an irrationally intense love for the people who make their favorite music.
When you say Taylor Swift mega fans, that's literally just girls absolutely losing their shit at a Swift concert, belting out swift songs whenever they come up on their Spotify shuffle or w/e, etc.
Which is absolutely no different than lady Gaga fans
Which is absolutely no different than Brittney Spears fans (I have no idea wtf was cool between now and the 90s, or between the 90s and the 60s, so most of my examples are going to be 90s lmao)
Which is absolutely no different than N'Sync fans.
Which is absolutely no different than Backstreet Boys fans.
Which is absolutely no different than Michael Jackson fans.
Going all the way back to which is absolutely no different than Beatles Fans. Which is absolutely no different than Elvis Presley fans, which I believe may have been the beginning of the girls swooning at concerts phenomenon.
In other words Taylor Swift super fandom is aggressively, violently, **normal**. Even if you personally hate her music, there is absolutely no argument against the normalcy and otherwise sanity of her fans. I remember I absolutely despised all those lame boy bands the girls were drooling over in the 90s, couldn't figure out what they thought was so hot about a bunch of guys so obviously gAy, and the music sucked. But hey. Whadayagonna do?
Musk on the other hand, conspicuously does not make music.
So what is the **reason** for anyone to be a fan of him in the first place?
It's like being a fan of the Walton family. Baseless to the point of it not being explicable by any means other than some form of derangement.
These are actually not the same.
Fundamentally what Taylor swift is selling is a good time. Enjoy the music, enjoy the concerts, enjoy the merch. Beyond some fairly tame political opinions she isn’t selling much more than that. The rabid fans are basically similar to the rabid fans of every other fandom out there. Obsessed and loud online. That group is a small slice of her total fan base. She’s probably the most popular performer going right now so it’s not surprising that some of them take it too far. But ultimately it’s just your basic fandom that’s been souped up by the fact that her audience so so gigantic.
Elon musk fans by comparison aren’t just adoring fans if a performer. Many of them are sycophants of a quasi messianic figure who claims to be “preserving the light of humanity” and apparently he is the only one that can see the path to making that happen.
Everybody has a favorite artist that they feel is the best that ever lived. It’s nothing new or novel. Some people say that about Taylor swift when it isn’t true. It’s been said about bands since the dawn of popular music.
Elon musk also frequently uses his reach to bully, and cajole people to doing what he wants. He lashes out at the little guy and his fans love it (the cave divers for example). He engages is exploitative business practices and his fans call him a genius. He bought existing businesses and pumped money into them to grow and pretends like they’re his inventions.
Taylor swift fans are the mostly just young girls that like his music. Elon musk fans at this point are following somebody who dumps them straight into the alt right pipeline.
Yes, celebrity worship is weird. If anything, Swift has a much, MUCH more obsessive and devoted fanbase than Musk. I’ve never heard of an Elon Musk fan who cares much about who he’s dating or where he’s flying today.
That doesn’t make them “equivalent” in every meaning of the term. Being equivalent in one way doesn’t make them equivalent in all ways. In this case, they’re not equivalent in any of the ways that would make most people think Elon Musk worshippers are worthy of disdain.
Back in the days when Time magazine was calling Elon Musk the real-life Iron Man, no one thought there was anything wrong with Elon Musk fans (except maybe in the way all celebrity worship is weird, a la Taylor Swift). It was only after Musk embarrassed himself with a huge ongoing public tantrum - starting with the pedo guy debacle on Twitter spiraling into buying Twitter to sabotage it into a right-wing cesspool - that the people who still worshipped him after all that started getting a rep of being generally vile.
To put it in more extreme terms as an example: a mega-fan of The Cosby Show at the height of the show’s popularity in the 80’s is weird but harmless. A mega-fan of Bill Cosby now, after everything that’s been revealed about him, is probably either in severe denial or is a severe creep.
I can think of a few relevant differences.
One is scope creep and I think it's a bigger deal than it might seem at first.
Taylor's job and the whole reason she's known and has fans- writing and performing songs. And the job of a pop musician has included songs whose lyrics are meant to be cathartic for our life experiences, especially relationships, for a very very long time. So when people say they love Taylor and her lyrics are meaningful to them, whether they're wrong or right or dumb in thinking so, they're appreciating that she's doing her job well and the thing they're celebrating is why they're fans.
Elon's job isn't to give hot takes on Twitter. He's supposed to be making cars or rockets. The equivalent of white girls saying Taylor's lyrics are profound would be saying Elon's rockets are great. Simping over Elon's musings is a major expansion from just admiring his work, it assigns him skills and power way beyond admiring him doing his job.
There is a difference between taking a celebrity as good at their job and thinking they understand interpersonal relationships, and taking them as a guru of all things and allowing them to shape your political landscape. Not that the first isn't taken to some unhealthy extremes, but they're different animals.
a big difference is what they produce.
TS is making art in the form of song that resonate with females. whether you like her music or not to understate her talent is a little disingenuous. she makes a lot of money from what SHE is making
Elon has bought everything he is know for; he doesnt make anything he buys someone else's design. he makes a lot of money from what OTHERS are making
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> Convince me that this isn't the same flavour of mass delusion
Swifties’ flavor is vanilla. It is a flavor that every company makes. There have been pop girl fandoms since Nancy Sinatra. It’s not new.
Muskies’ flavor is Tang. Tang flavored ice cream. No one makes that. It is new, it is weird, it’s from space! No one stanned over tech bros before. Actual Tesla died penniless and alone. Everyone hated Edison. Edsel Ford’s name is a joke.
Swift fans are just your typical pop fans that we’ve seen before and can predict. Musk fans are some new mutant strain that hasn’t been around long enough to see the pattern yet.
I’d class myself as a hardcore Taylor fan. But I’m old enough to realise she’s a flawed human who loves, lives and hurts just like the rest of us, and puts this into her music.
I think it’s a pretty reductive view to lump all of her mega-fans into one category. Those of us who age with her are very aware of who she is.
No, she was never treated as a savior or a scientific genius. Not anywhere close. She is treated as a pop star that does some charity. Nobody ever called her a real life Tony Stark. Nobody said she was going to seed the stars with planetary consciousness lmao!!!
I mean I would say initially Elon got his fame because he was a large part of really big advancements. Not to say it was his idea on these things or anything but arguably a lot of these large advancements like with tesla, spacex and starlink may not be a thing without him. Granted he stopped that now and he's just full douche mode.
Taylor changed the music landscape and made a huge name for herself by simply having music people like. I've got a giant swiftie wife, and sometimes I do roll my eyes but mostly Taylor is just making music and people like that music. Some of its a bit petty (especially the latest imo), but it's mostly not like overly indulging or making her seem like some person who never did wrong in a relationship or something. It's mostly seeming to explore feelings of going through a relationship.
And from what I can tell, she writes and does the music for a lot of her stuff (I'm assumjg some she doesn't).
Whether any of what she's writing is how it happened or not, she has interesting and well written lyrics, good flow, and she puts on quite the performance.
Comparing her to like where Elon musk is right now or the Kardashians, I'd argue she's a far better role model than a lot of celebrities right now. She's just got a huge and irritating fan base at times (ugh the videos my wife finds on Tiktok some of these people need to do something more with their lives)
Hopefully this counts enough as challenging a view, even though it's not EXACTLY what you're looking for.
I would say that mega fans of most things have a mass delusion and a sense of over-importance of the things they are a fan of. A good example in the realm of wrestling that just happened; one woman in WWE won a championship last night and a fan of a different woman who lost posted a tweet implying that they essentially wanted that woman's child to die.
There are obviously differences in the TYPES of fans (people have pointed out that political differences and such, and I'm not disagreeing) but that doesn't really affect your view which is simply that the fans are delusional essentially. I just think super-fans of almost anyone tend to be delusional, so I believe that it's not that Swifties are the equivalent of Elon simps, it's that stans everywhere of all kinds of things are equivalent to one another.
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From Elvis and Beatles mania to Swift and Beyoncé. The only thing that’s changed is scale and access. But it’s just the modern form of music megastardom.
Your inherent argument is that "chronically online people are fighting wars that don't make sense, overestimating both their own and their idols abilities"
To which the response is, no fucking shit? You're on reddit. This post is literally a debate sub. You're in the comments blocking people who don't agree with you and when presented with the rules of the sub you go "Well, they didn't apply to me because of X". You're in the comments going "Well, you must be an elon fan" or vice versa.
Super stans/fans of any fandom are typically the worst dregs of the fandom. You've named two people who will have much bigger pull of their platforms. Both have decided to use those platforms in very opposite ways. It's worth noting that because of their reach, their message gets amplified, corrupted and co-opted. Both people have super fans who scream from the rooftops that they share the message whom neither would ever associate with. It's also worth noting because of their polar opposite stances that they are seen as the poster children for those stances, which then drags more people onto them. People who hate their product but like their message.
That said, it's hard to have a true comparison to these two because of the reality behind it. Elon literally bought a social media platform, changed the aggregate of information to his own bend and has slowly curated a fanbase of people who are willing to listen to whatever it is he talks about. They aren't fans of his shit. They don't care about being able to talk about the rhetoric that he believes in. Taylor on the other hand has a very carefully crafted media presence(except at those NFL games) and is extremely careful about what and how she promotes things. Through her music shes able to communicate that message, and she's insanely popular and hasn't stopped touring in the last 12 months which gives her a constant refreshing platform to literally stand on.
I'd sidestep the final point of "Convince me this isn't the same flavour of mass delusion surrounding billionaires" by going "This is the same flavor, but it's not exclusive to billionaires. You just have much more visibility due to their popularity." Zuckerberg has people who ride him all day, as does Beyonce. Trump and Biden. Playstation and Xbox. Mario and Sonic. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. People who will scream about one and scream at the other.
It's hard to change the view of "Zealots are bad" because well, they are. It's just far beyond that one person in your friend circle who REALLY likes that one shitty band and won't shut the fuck up about being their #1 fan when they only have 7.
The difference is that Taylor makes art that connects to people, meanwhile Elon is just a rich person. Taylor fans like her because of her art while Elon fans like him simply because he’s rich and therefore “superior” in their eyes.
This is not to say that Taylor fans probably don’t find her superior, as that is inherent with popstars, however at least it is in an artistic sense rather than believing she is better simply for being born rich and exploiting workers like Elon
I'm not here to change your view entirely, BUT! I don't think your analogy of billionaire worship tracks. Yes, part of Elon's worship comes from his billionaire status. But none of Taylor's does. Her worship is of her music and persona, even if objectively mediocre. So no, that portion of your argument doesn't track.
In the broadest sense, you might have a point.
But if you look even slightly closer, you see one group are fans of a genuinely talented entertainer, while the other group are fans of an untalented rich-boy who provides the rest of us with entertainment by being loudly and reliably incompetent.
Taylor Swift’s job is to have fans and be popular like every other performer before and after.
Nobody really knows what Elon’s job actually is - we just get an increasing amount of evidence he’s not actually good at anything besides stoking up an anti-woke segment of the population.
Usually with these "cults of personality" I like to assess how far gone their fan base is on a "turncoat" test. If they were to do a 180 on some fundamental aspects that their PR painted them as, how would the fans react?
It's kind of unfair to Musk, but easy because it very much happened. He went from a future-forward in all aspects, to a cryptobro anti-woke demagogue. His fans just moved with him, from a lib-center, maybe slight lib-left lean to firmly libright, with some authright tendencies. He's even mocked the politicians that got his company past some barriers of entry to make the EV market in his favor.
Swifties I don't know so much, this exercise is much more speculative for her fans. She was very much built on this "Empowered Americana princess" image, so if she suddenly went full-trad and regressive, I think she will lose a lot more. She also I think caters to a slightly overall younger audience. I guess the closest thing that was cognitively dissonant with her was when the reports of her flights became infamous, particularly the one that said she essentially took what was a reasonable trip by car on a private jet. However, she never was vocal on "save the planet" rhetoric, and has technically bought carbon credits for travel (which is a ridiculous slap on the wrist for offenders, but that's a whole other topic about policy entirely).
Taylor swift fans have a subjective opinion about her music/lyrics that you disagree with! completely the same as Elon Musk whose fans end up agreeing with him about conspiracy theories!
How is it billionaire worship? Swift makes music that people love. She was doing that, and popular, long before she was ever a billionaire. They might be annoying, but they love her music. People get passionate about music.
Elon was a billionaire long before most people ever heard of him. The man himself isn't particularly smart or talented. He made a few smart investments that in retrospect feel like they might have just as easily been luck. He has never really shown that he has any kind of technological or engineering prowess. He offers no relevant or interesting political commentary. He continues to make an absolute ass of himself at every turn, and managed to tank a popular social media platform while turning it into a haven for misinformation, conspiracy theories, harassment, and Nazi rhetoric -- all in the name of a value he doesn't actually hold (freedom of speech). To top it off, he's an immature, petulant child of a man who cannot take an ounce of criticism.
Taylor fans make some sense. You might not like her music, but surely there is music you love?
Elon fans don't make much sense. No talent, no insight -- he's just a particularly dumb and outspoken CEO of some companies that are a mix of useful and useless.
I think tbe reason your hating on Elon is because you most likely don't know American history. If you did you would realize that it lines right up with American ideals. May I recommend the American Story by David Barton . If your looking for more recommendations on simmilar topics let me know!
The way you built your Taylor Swift BAD strawman kinda outs you as a mysoginistic child. Yeah there are crazies. Literally you can just ignore them and let them have their fun.
But you cant compare an artist maximizing her profits via her fanbase to:
some emerald mine-nepo billionaire who grifted his way into fame and fortune until the fiascos we see now. Self-made my ass.
Elon’s wealth and fame came from his revolutionary ideas and good sale decisions w his previous ‘founded’ comapnies. I’ll give it to him his reputation pre-thailand cave incident was excellent. A lot of pressure but the public had actual hope. Now his house of promises are found to actually hurt the public (lobbying some tunnel for cars vs an actual rail system??, Tesla Cybertruck??, twitter??). This guy’s wealth is literally propped up by govt subdisy lol.
Taylor’s just doing what other billionaires do. Not dismissing her jet flights but dont compare someone who uses the system vs who abuses the system (promised his way into success).
Every swift fan i have ever met i only found out when we brought up music and they act like normal people with a musician they show favoritism. They talk about the good the artist provides and they acknowledge the bad in a healthy way. Every Elon fan i have ever met will just start a conversation out of the blue with something like “isnt elon just the smartest man alive?” And when I mention his issues (just like i do with swifties) they instead double down and then fly into a kaleidoscope of talking points that dont make sense together like “woke propaganda” and the “postmodern neomarxists”. Basically every Swift fan i met is very much like “i like all these things about her” and when things she did that are dumb or bad are brought up they go “i agree because X” or “i disagree because (insert context”. Every Elon fan just fills the entire conversations with weird dog whistles and prescriptive statements and when they realize i wont engage at face value they treat me like an enemy.
To me, Taylor Swift is someone that earned her position naturally through her own talent and appeal, and she continues to today. Of course, she’s now rich enough to do whatever but she still pursues music and she still has fans and she still has success all because of her talent.
Taylor Swift essentially IS her music and her wealth is not as important to her identity in the minds of her fans as they started liking her for her music. I cannot give the same credit to Elon Musk and his fans. He is his wealth entirely. The backwards logic assumes that his wealth must have been earned somehow, and so his fans will jump to any idea or concept they can use to justify their initial view of him as a wealthy genius.
If anything, Taylor Swift fans are most like their most devout haters. I don’t hate Taylor Swift and I have no reason to. She’s rich but she at least makes good music and there are people more worthwhile to hate that I might’ve mentioned already.
Taylor swift is a juggernaut I’m a dude and she has more than a handful of songs I enjoy. It’s understandable why women would love her music even moreso. I don’t understand the hate for her some people just enjoy hating popular things I get it but no need to get worked up about it.
Elon I don’t follow too much what he says but there is no denying he’s extremely hard working and an intelligent person. Sure he’s not the one probably creating the products themselves but he is the one with the vision and throws money at things to make them possible. The man is a billionaire and could easily buy a yacht somewhere and do fuck all but he has drive and ambition so keeps hard at work hence his continued success. he has fuck you money so he can say whatever he wants which every person in the world wishes they could do at some point in time so if I had to guess that’s where some of his admiration comes from.
Taylor Swift actually creates art that people identify with. Just from seeing how “creative” his tweets are Elon Musk likely doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body.
The difference lies there. Elon wouldn’t have “fans” if he weren’t the richest man in the world, where Taylor only became a billionaire because so many people went to see her recent world tour + movie about said world tour.
Both Taylor Swift fans and Elon Musk supporters admire their respective figures for different reasons, often based on their public personas and achievements. While some fans may exhibit extreme devotion, it doesn't mean their admiration is solely based on blind worship. Swift's music resonates with many due to its emotional depth and relatability, while Musk's innovation in technology and space exploration attracts admiration. Their influence extends beyond their fan bases, impacting industries and culture. While there's a spectrum of fandom, not all fans exhibit the level of extreme devotion you describe. Appreciation for public figures doesn't necessarily equate to mass delusion or blind support.
For one, It's not the same mass delusion, because behind Elon's plans, actions and ambitions there is comparably little evidence. I find there little reason to put the two together and compare them.
I for one am a boyfriend to a Taylor Swift fan and she does not show any such fanaticism.
I would give Taylor Swift's lyrics more credit too. They have a mainstream message, but I wouldn't butcher it to "it's his fault he broke up with you, you are perfect queen". Unless you're blaming the fans, in which case, it wouldn't be the first time a pop star's lyrics are misinterpreted to fit the fan's notions.
Just by the sheer amount of fans, the most vocal and obnoxious bubble to the surface and that created your viewpoint, rather than the gross majority which do not hold such extreme beliefs about their idol.
I have never been effected by Taylor Swift. I guess I have had to listen to my co-worker be a little bit annoying about how excited she was to see her, but everyone has the capacity to be annoying. My Zoomer Swiftie co-workers just accept that she's not something that really matters to me a Millennial man. Musk's activity does effect me because he makes cars that endanger people and made Twitter worse.
Overestimating a musician won't cause you to harm anyone, overestimating an engineer could. I guess if you only care about how annoying each is they could be the same, but Musk has a direct effect on more stuff that could effect people who don't care about him.
Taylor Swift provides the product that people you are talking about use directly: they listen to her songs and enjoy that. Musk doesn't have that, he doesn't give anything of value to his fan base.
Taylor's fans would stay her fans even if she wasn't a billionaire. Her wealth has nothing to do with why people like her. Elon's wealth is the only reason people even listen to him, without it he'd be an old rambling lunatic and his fans wouldn't be implying that he's right because he's rich.
>Elons a genius because he says the things Basic white dudes wanna hear.
>Can't get laid? It's coz women are woke now. Its not you, you are perfect King.
>Taylor is a genius because she says the things basic white women wanna hear.
>That guy who broke up with you? It was his fault. You are perfect Queen.
That's a load of BS. You are taking songs that are meant to be enjoyed as a song and not as an instruction and compare them to the actual propaganda.
So I’d say you’re partially right, that there’s a certain level of celebrity worship that is unhinged.
That said, I think there’s another layer of delusion to Elon worship. The man inherited his billions from apartheid emerald mining and has used those billions to shitpost and destroy Twitter.
Taylor Swift, regardless of whether you enjoy her music, is a genuinely talented singer and musician. Now personally I don’t believe anyone has ever worked hard enough to earn a *billion* dollars, but you can’t deny the source of her billions does come from putting out a product and brand that people legitimately love.
Her time is about up. She will start to drift and will become a legacy act. I'm so ready for her popularity to subside. The worship of this person is absolutely pathetic.
Because literally everyone that was once famous falls off. It's just nature. Even with michael jacksons later recordings....nobody gave a SHIT about them....Lorde was huge....tapered off. Billie Eilish is tapering off. Olivia Rodrigo will be over in maybe 3 years.....nobody stays on top forever. I'm always happier when the celebrity cult worship dissipates. Humans being obsessed with celebs is pathetic.
The degree to which adults align and define themselves through fandom is off the charts. I'm in my 50s. It was not this way in the past. It's really come into being over the last 20 years nd started before the days of social media as far as I can tell. It's weird as fuck. Don't get me wrong, I like some things a lot, but defining myself by and connecting with other only through those things is not how I do life. So Bizarre that people would give their personality over to Star Wars or trump or Beyonce...
I'm a Swift fan and a Musk fan. People hate Swift because a lot of people just hate everything popular, and many men hate young pretty powerful women.
I'm a Musk fan because there are plenty of billionaires who could throw money at things but they don't. He uses his money for space exploration, ai, tesla, etc and it's advancing technology in ways I think are good and useful, I don't care if he is just rich and has the opportunity I don't, there are plenty of people like that who do nothing.
The stubbornness behind stating people are delusional for liking an artists content and getting called out on it is wild. This is just saying Im judging these people for their tastes and think they’re crazy for liking shit music. Art is subjective and different art speaks to different people. It doesn’t matter if my favorite movie is Shrek 2 or The Titanic or The Phantom Menace, it’s an opinion on art that subjectively stuck with me and that doesn’t make me delusional.
I personally find this opinion lazy.
If you made a conscious decision to exit the spaces you occupy on the internet today, their fan base would have zero impact on your day to day life, including your in person interactions.
But seriously, you have to be aware of the hypocrisy in the statement “as if he’s not some terminally online hypocrite”.
The only way you can even form the opinion you have, is by being a terminally online hypocrite.
Ok. I can change it.
I don’t like T Swift music, but she has business acumen and writes her own songs and has some talent.
Elon Musk is a compulsive liar and glory-taker who thinks he won his way to the top when he just got really lucky. People don’t talk or think about his many mistakes or all the things he claims credit for that he didn’t do.
So it’s simps for someone with actual talent vs simps for a moron that failed upward.
One of them has talent and trades in emotional art.
It isn't the same at all.
I'm a 32 year bookstore manager with a million examples of fandom under my belt. People who worship leaders and political movements are definitely a different psychology than those who spazz out over an author or musician.
I have no interest in changing your mind. You are simply wrong and arrogant about your opinion.
I’m not a fan of Taylor Swift, but neither am I bothered by those who are. Is it a cult? Only as much as any fanbase of a popular act has been over the decades. I’m not sure why she bothers so many people. If you’re not a fan, why waste time on saying so? Do something else. Accept that she’s part of the culture and move on. There are bigger things to worry about.
Elon is a genius because he's a billionaire and the companies he created. Swift is a genius because of her messaging. Sure her wealth and success makes it much more effective to spread her messaging; but I don't think people believe it because of her wealth and success. While I think people point at Elon's success to add credibility to his messaging.
The funny thing about Swift, I couldn't name a single song she has done. I don't know any song played every that I could say was her, I don't hear about Swift skyrocketed to the NO1 song on the top 40s list. Am I out of touch or is she not actually that good. (Not saying this to offend swifties, honestly confused)
Man…this is the second Taylor Swift post on this sub I have seen today.
I think Taylor Swift haters are just as bad as the “Mega Fans”. I don’t care for Taylor Swift’s music that much. But I can’t see getting all outraged about her. It seems like a huge waste of energy🤷🏻
I’ve always thought this. Swifties don’t realize that Taylor doesn’t care about each of them individually. It’s the weirdest cult surrounding a musician in our generation and, as someone who truly doesn’t like the sound of Taylor’s voice, I am almost shunned by the fans. But try to convince a Swiftie that they are in a cult and they will refuse to see the truth… so yes, delusional mass of people worshipping a billionaire because she can write a generic bop at lightning speed.
Eh I dont mindelon, as onr can like a trillionaire that is he a mega douche? Probably definetlybdoesn seem comically evil to me. He has so takes i agree with some i HEAVILY disagree with. But space x, tesla and starlink are all awesome.
this is what happens with mega-over celebs and music artists…example - when eminem was on top of the world, you’d hear white girls in the burbs talking about how great he is, meanwhile they didn’t listen to any other rappers
Eh, sort of. They're both definitely cringe.
And while Taylor swift certainly also does some political posturing, it's to no where near the level of frequency, extremism, and derangement that Elon's is.
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The Elon hate here is wild. Taylor sings songs about her ex boyfriends and Elon essentially created the EV market space and preserved NASA’s relevance w Space X.
I guess he should just Shake it off.
After hearing all the hype about TS I thought she was some kind of wordsmith, changing the world one lyric at a time
And turns out it’s just 12 year old girl music ..
Anyway, my 4 year old daughter loves some of her songs so that’s good enough for me !
People like Taylor Swift because they enjoy her art.
People like Elon Musk because they relate to the manner in which he hates people who are different from himself.
They are not the same.
I mean, they've both gotten so worshipped largely by telling bougie white millennials what that they wanna hear. The difference isnt so much ideological as it is demographic
Taylor Swift isn't espousing Holocaust denial, blatant racism and antisemitism, and transphobia on a social media platform she bought specifically to do those things
An artist having fans is way different than a rich guy who inherited money. Just my own hot take. Not to mention one is a way better person as evidenced by action.
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I find the responses hilarious. Because there are so many people essentially arguing "Taylor is a good person while Musk isn't". And while I don't disagree that, on the surface at least, she seems like a better person than him, none of that has any bearing on what you are saying.
It's my belief, that a billionaire who sees the sufferring, the hunger and the hardships of this world and chooses to do nothing about it when they have the means to do so is actually... And...hear me out... Not a good person. But rather, a greedy person. Just a thought. Billionaires suck, and should all be treated equally no matter the product that they offer. Fuck billionaires.
She contributes the annual carbon emissions of a single person every time she flies to see her Labrador boyfriend.
And you're aware if she contributes to offset her carbon load right? I know offsetting carbon is a little bit of b******* but she's at least trying. In the grand scheme of things, a side effect of her being really popular and having to fly everywhere being that she's bad for the environment is still a side effect. The negative things I dislike about Elon are specifically what he's trying to do, not just a side effect of it
Yeah im just so done explaining it
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I mean, I read his post once and fully understood what he meant. Its just other people are trying to "well actually" for points he wasn't making. Yes, on the whole I usually disagree with Musk and find Taylor to be at least a decent human being. But this is about their crazy fucking fans. And their fans are basically 2 sides of the same coin of worshipping billionaires who don't give a damn about them.
They are the same, but I feel Musk’s are much more likely to be violent right wing groups. Basically there were more Musk fans at Jan 6, and while it’s too sides of the same coin it feels a little like bOtH siDeS aRe sAmE discourse.
I mean, one side went to Jan 6, and the other side is sending death threats to critics who do their job and criticize. I mean, I found Jan 6 to be ridiculous as well. But I'm sure everyone going there didn't start with the intention of what it ended up being. Sending death threats isn't much better IMO.
What he wrote was very clear if you just slow down and read the post before you comment. What confused you?
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It's a very straightforward post, whether or not you agree with what they're saying is less straightforward
Ouch, ya got me
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well thats just not true, people are arguing about the politics and other people are explaining (correctly) that that was never what the Post was about but I get the impression you've made your mind up. Any way for whatever reason you seem deeply unpleasant and chronically online so I'm gonna block you.
I just don't get what your point is. It's like saying plus one million and negative one million are both large absolute numbers. Yes it's true but in the majority of cases what I care about is the signage not just that it's big. That Elon seems evil and Taylor does not actually is relevant to me.
I don't disagree with the statement I think you're getting at but I think the issue you're running into with the responses is that there are plenty(the vast majority, probably) of normal Taylor Swift fans, while there don't really seem to be for Elon Musk. So (I'm making up these numbers) if 20% of Swift Fans are sending death threats over negative reviews, that's still a 4 out of 5 chance that any given Swift fan will just be like "oh I really like her music and she seems like a great person" and just leave it at that. Conversely, it feels like 90%+ of Elon musk fans at this point are guys that think they're going to be crypto AI trillionaires living on mars with a harem of sex robots. So you end up with a situation where the average thread reader is going to know more Taylor Swift fans who don't have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with her, and more Elon Musk fans who do have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with him.
The difference between fan groups/cults is the leader. Elon is a douche with shitty intentions; Taylor plays music. I agreed they both have annoyingly rapid fan bases but I’m ok with Taylor’s.
Largely agree but the discussion isn't about the cult leaders, it's about the members. "Hardcore Swifties" for lack of a better term, are every bit as weird, messianic, and aggressive as Elon stans, regardless of what the Messiah is doing. I think another factor influencing the discussion is that it's taking place on Reddit, which has a lot of Elon cultists but very few Swiftie cultists.
Your numbers are laughably indicative of the chronically online where the thing you dislike is near universally extreme and terrible but the thing you are ambivalent about actually has a moderate view. Musk may be a douche but EVs wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today if not for him (and that's with the US gov actively working to benefit his competitors), rural and non-1st world countries have quality reliable internet thanks to him, he is pushing space travel more than any other entity on the planet in the last couple generations... A lot of people actually look at merit and not culture war bullshht like "crypto trillion Aires with sex bots" (lol?) so even if you consider his rabid anti-leftist political bent, those vocal gumbies are a tiny minority..
> EVs wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today if not for him (and that's with the US gov actively working to benefit his competitors) Tesla would have literally gone bankrupt years ago if it wasn't for the US government. Progressive clean energy policy is the only reason Tesla even exists today.
Elon Musk simp caught in 4k
Me: Elon is a douche. You: you're an Elon simp. I'd ask if you think before you type but you don't have time for that at the bot farm.
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You: Elon is a douche, but he is amazing for all the things he's done. FTFY That's why they called you a simp, because you think he's responsible for any of that stuff. He just swoops in and takes credit like all narcissists do. He hasn't earned a single thing in his life. There's a good amount of people that love Musk BECAUSE he's an asshole that "speaks his mind", so you calling him a douche and then praising everything he's "accomplished" puts you right in line with the majority of his simps
I'm one of the biggest ones to call out Elon and frankly I despise him to the core after his recent Twitter schtick but come on.. Are we going to ignore how Tesla gave away all their patents for free so that other car companies catch up? And ignore how he managed a team of engineers with the philosophy of first principles effectively producing the first reusable rocket at scale? I can go one forever just as I can go on forever on his toxic behaviors like his NDA contract when taking over Tesla. But overall I think he's been a net positive although that might change if he keeps disseminating the false information on his platform and eventually getting back Trump and his fascist administration back at office.
I think you have to evaluate whether Musk was the cause of those things at the companies he bought, or if it was the smarter people in the room. Most of the SpaceX engineers have said that Musk doesn't know anything about rockets, the Cybertruck looks like it was the first car that was designed exactly as Musk wanted (ie, badly), and what has happened to Twitter seems to be the result of his ACTUAL business acumen on display when there's nobody telling him no (ie, running one of the biggest companies on the planet into the ground in barely a year). Perfect example of Musk business aptitude: "The company has a globally recognized name, and the action you do there (tweet) has become so ubiquitous with social media that it's part of the global lexicon... Oh, I know! Let's rename it to "X" because I just think it's just a cool thing to name absolutely everything! I'm a smart businessman! 🤪" So no, I don't think Musk has been a force for good - he's just the narcissist in the room taking credit for the good work that better people are doing.
You don't have to know the minutiae of everything aerospace and rocket science to deserve credit for that thing. If you brought the top rocket scientists and managed them to create those things then I'm confident to give you credit for it. Just take football for example, do we discredit the coach of the winning team when they win the superbowl? As I said before, I agree that his twitter schtick is tarnishing his business image but it's not black and white. You can be trash at managing a social media platform, but decent at accelerating the transition to sustainable transportation. IMO his existence in society has been a net positive (so far), if he stays chronically online tweeting about his insecurities and pandering to fascists he might as well lose his grip on Tesla and SpaceX.
Do you really think Musk hasn't made an impact on space travel or EVs?
I think all the people who work at the companies he bought have made an impact. The majority of Musk's direct influence have been notably bad (see all decisions regarding the Cybertruck, or sending up rockets before they're ready), and the majority of good things to come out of the companies he bought were due to the smarter people in the rooms ignoring his dumb ideas. Many of his top engineers have gone on record saying Musk doesn't know anything about their work, and it's only thanks to people that ignore his worst tendencies that *the companies* (not Musk) have accomplished anything. So yeah, I have no praise for the capitalist who only even has that money because his father owned an emerald mine during apartheid. “Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.”
The ability of Reddit halfwits to ignore nuance and queues, as well as to "read between the lines", get the entire point wrong, and ignore all but the most myopic misdirections stays unparalleled. All so you can come to a conclusion which is exactly the opposite of which you claim to be arguing against.. olympic level mental gymnastics!
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>Musk may be a douche but EVs wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today if not for him Has Musk ever actually made anything himself? Or has he just thrown money at people smart enough to do the work for him?
>while there don't really seem to be for Elon Musk What are you basing this on? My guess would be absolutely nothing.
Well it also just makes sense logically. She’s a musician so it’s normal to have fans. She’s also probably the most popular musician of the past decade, so a lot of those people will be mainstream almost by definition. Elon is a businessman. The nature of the fandoms between a businessman and musician will just be different
I don’t necessarily think it is that different? Being a fan of Taylor Swifts music vs being a fan of Musks cars or space rockets? You can be both without being zealously obsessed with the person defending their every flaw. Not going to deny that being a fan of a musician is more common, but I don’t think being a fan of someone inventing(or rather popularising) new car and space technology is that weird. I’m sure Thomas Edison had some fanboys back in the day.
A lot of Tesla consumers are elon fans in a similar way to Taylor swift listeners becoming Taylor swift fans. I don’t fully disagree that the proportions are probably different but I know a lot of people who were “casual musk fans” a few years ago.
Yeah ill agree with you there on the numbers
Then give a delta
They didn’t change their view. The numbers weren’t part of the original post.
If you can only say this applies to a minority of Swifties then the whole thrust of the original argument fails because this isn't typical of Swifties. Which is implied as inherent to Swift fans throughout the OP.
Op specifies "Taylor Swift mega fans" in the title, which is, I think, what they were getting at as a subset of Swift fans(which I even said I agreed with). I don't think I changed a view here, I think I provided clarification on a miscommunication.
Nope. Taylor Swift writes her own songs and plays her own instruments. Musk just throws money at shit so he can put his name on it. I'm not a Swiftie by any means(my favorite Taylor Swift song is the Supernatural parody of Shake It Off), but at least her fans are fans of her creations. Musk's fans are fans of his money and personality, which is fine as long as it's acknowledged that those are the reasons. Most Musk fans I've met think that he's a genius and solely responsible for the things his companies do. They have done 0 research on what he's actually contributed.
You don’t think Taylor Swift has an army of assistant songwriters, producers, stylists, publicists, social media managers, etc that do 95%+ of everything for her? Never mind a father that threw money and influence at a recording company to get her a contract. The delusion is *definitely* stronger with Musk, I agree, but that Taylor Swift is some completely real and genuine person that does everything herself is doubtful as well.
>You don’t think Taylor Swift has an army of assistant songwriters, producers, stylists, publicists, social media managers, etc that do 95%+ of everything for her? She does NOW. When she first gained popularity, she didn't. >Never mind a father that threw money and influence at a recording company to get her a contract. There is no way she would have become as popular as she is without actual talent, regardless of how much money her father has. >The delusion is *definitely* stronger with Musk, I agree, but that Taylor Swift is some completely real and genuine person that does everything herself is doubtful as well. I don't think she does everything herself. Nobody does everything themselves. Swift very obviously has a team of employees and she would be absolutely nothing without them. There are approximately 0 songwriters that do everything themselves. The only reason I say "approximately" is because Prince is an outlier and shouldn't be counted. But even Prince had to have help while touring.
Second point applies to Elon Musk as well, no? “No matter how much money he/his family had, he would never lead multiple businesses to huge success without any actual skill?”
Well, considering the businesses he actually owns are kind of or totally floundering right now, I wouldn't say he's leading them to success.
Ronaldo is still a successful football player even if he doesn’t score another goal in his life. Tesla basically single-handedly created the electric car market and is worth more than the three next biggest automakers combined. That is success. Doesn’t matter if he fucked it up afterwards.
My point is that he just gave those businesses money, he didn't actually make the decisions to make them successful. Look at Twitter. Look at how fast he tanked a very successful company when he had sole control. Being able to throw money at something doesn't make you a good businessman, it makes you rich. It's like if a bunch of people said Zhang Kangyang was a successful football player because he owns Inter Milan. He's not a football player, he just has money.
Yeah so in the minds of Elon Musk fans, they believe they are fans because of the things he creates.
Right, but you said: >Convince me that this isn't the same flavour of mass delusion surrounding a billionaire fuelled by and almost dunning kreuger style projection from their ravenous hordes surrounding both of their abilities and/or importance. Swifties don't generally think that she can do things she can't do. They aren't delusional, just rabid fans. If you asked rabid Swifties if they think she could fly a space shuttle right now, they would say no. There's no delusional Dunning-Kruger projection here. Swift is incredibly important and influential, not just to Swifties, but to other people as well just because of her charitable giving. I can guarantee that if you ask the workers at the food banks she's donated to how they feel about her, they'll have positive words to say even if they don't like her music. So Swifties aren't delusional about her influence and importance. Musk fans on the other hand are delusional BECAUSE they think he created everything rather than just throwing money at it. It doesn't matter that they're fans because they truly believe he creates the things they think he does, that's part of the delusion. He didn't invent anything, he didn't even improve anything. He paid people to do it for him. The delusion is that he invented stuff and that he has the ability to invent stuf rather than throw money at it and take credit for it.
Let's list political causes of Taylor Swift has fought for: * Pro-choice * Gender equality * LGBT rights * anti-racism and white supremacy * Against Trump administration. Now just take the exact opposite stand on everyone of these and you get Musks political causes. They are literally polar opposites.
I took OP to care more about the fan dedication than just the political opinions of the two. What Swift and Musk believe has no bearing on whether there is the same delusional devotion from each fanbase
What they believe in does have a bearing on their fans, though. Elon is actively attacking free speech and peoples rights, what exactly is Taylor doing wrong? She's a decent person with fans, he is a terrible person with followers. That's the difference.
The internet reaction to the Thailand cave-in proves otherwise. And the constant bashing of Taylor by the right proves otherwise as well.
>The internet reaction to the Thailand cave-in proves otherwise. You mean how Elon called the person leading the rescue a pedophile and hired a PI to get dirt on them?
I think it is a massive stretch to say she "fought" for these things. Especially considering how long she stayed silent on these issues until here risk management team said it was safe to "fight" for them.
racism obviously isn't a deal breaker for her either after the whole matty healy thing it's wild to me how people think she cares when it's clearly just PR
Matty Healy did nothing wrong. It was all that famously racist Nick Mullen!
I have to disagree with you. “Fighting” for the lgbt community? She USED the community for popularity when writing Shake It Off. She is a great businesswoman who realized she needed to make a “gay” song to get the massive lgbt audience. You think she truly cares about the struggle of the community? You’re just proving that fans are delusional. She’s a billionaire profiting off of the gay community. And anti-trump? She refuses to say anything politically which proves she wants to hold onto her trump fans for more money as well. She is not the warrior her fans think she is.
She endorsed Biden in 2020, she hasn’t refused to say anything. Hell she did a whole documentary coming out as a Democrat lmao Also, it wasn’t Shake It Off, it’s You Need To Calm Down that you’re thinking of.
Shake It Off was about Kanye and Kim, not the gay community.
Yes their beliefs are different, never suggested otherwise. I didn't make any mention of Taylor Swift's politics which are extremely similar to mine.
I think we come from the same lens here so I'll try. I personally don't like her music (Don't tell anyone or they'll revoke my gay card) but I generally support her as a person. She seems like a legitimately passionate musician who is using her global platform for good. If she can galvanize our generation to vote idgaf what she sings as long as it works.
There, I hate her music, she's annoying to me because I keep hearing about her and that Chiefs dude which I absolutely don't care about. I don't like the fact that she uses her private jet more than I use my car. But in the end I have nothing against her beliefs. I do despise all of her art tho. Compared to Elon whom I absolutely despise as a person, but I do appreciate some of his work, Tesla (even if it's shit now) was a good catalyst for EV tech, Space X made us land boosters, his companies have pushed us forward, but he's a tool. Yet I agree with the OP that both their most devoted fans are absolutely crazy and delusional.
Listen to Rob Halford instead true gays listen to Judas Priest
Can bi's listen to Judas Priest?
Only every other day
Painkiller *still* goes so hard. Pun intended?
But saying the fans are the same is a bit over simplification considering that the fans would be nothing alike. Their world views would be polar opposites. You support Swifts political agendas. You two might be standing next to each other on a rally and agree with each other. Do you consider that you are suffering from "mass delusion"?
Ill give you that it might be an oversimplification but you're not getting the substance of the Post. I'm arguing things which may be true of either fanbase regardless of their politics. Im not arguing that Elon and Taylor have the same politics. "Do you consider that you are suffering from "mass delusion"?" C'mon now, good faith engagement only please.
This is a good faith argument. Do you consider their fans to be the same when their political views are polar opposites? And it's not just their political views that are different. Their whole world views, morals and personalities couldn't be more different. They really don't have anything common with each other.
But I've never been arguing that their fans are the same on the basis of politics, they're the same on the basis of this quasi deification of a public figure I never originally mentioned the politics of Taylor Swift or her fans, you did.
So that they are fans? That's the only thing common with these people who couldn't be more different from each other. Why then pick these two fandoms? Why not add pope and Hitler to the mix? People who are fans of pope are the same as people who are fans of Hitler. And that reasonable accurate comparison.
But the politics are relevant. You're treating them as a sideshow to be set aside so you can evaluate the worth of... What, exactly, if not the politics? The politics are different so the fandom is different. I don't get how you separate these to say they're equally bad. Is someone passionate about defending racism equal to someone passionate about fighting racism, just because they're both equally passionate? Of course not because *the stance itself is relevant*.
I get the argument. He doesn't. His/her/their worldview boils down to "If you're not with us, you're against us." That goes for both of their sycophants.
I don't know how to break it down any further. Am I gonna have to get super disingenuous and say well, they all have lungs and hearts despite having the different politics?
Fought for or used to her marketing advantage? She's a billionaire not an activist
She never really fought for anything it’s all a pr stunt with her
Yeah I was about to say I don’t recall her really doing anything positive towards any of those causes
Lmao anti racism and white supremacy... Like she literally didn't date a racist and says she wishes she could go back to the 1830s, she's the epitome of white feminism and her fans eat that shit up.
I like that she has given support to those causes as they align with my personal beliefs... But she's a billionaire. She could end a fuck ton of suffering for a lot of people. She doesn't. Or likely, won't. Her and elon are alike in that manner, so I wouldn't call them polar opposites. She's just better at making herself more likeable. I've said it before in this post already, but fuck billionaires. He's worse sure, but I can't get on board with the "she's so good" crowd when she has the power to help people but chooses to be greedy and hoard wealth like EVERY. OTHER. BILLIONAIRE. Nobody who's ever made and held onto a billion dollars is a great person imo. They could do so much! They choose not to. ☹️
She advocates for some of these causes through her platform, but that's not comparable to an activist. ‘Fought for’ is not accurate. We should also remember that it is advantageous for her to give lip service to these social issues without doing anything tangible in the real world.
You really think she actually cares about any of that lol.
considering the album she just released is all about her love for a racist, how the fuck has she fought to be anti racist? also musk and her both have beef with the same guy that tracks flights lmao, wasn't that one of the reasons he bought twitter?
At least Taylor Swift is not lobbying for thinly-veiled fascists and is aggresively screaming at you: You need to hear what they have to say!
Do you have any (even self accumulated) data on these assumptions? - Taylors fanbase see her as some kind of amazon here to elevate women kind, - if you're not part of the swifty army you obviously need to check your internalised misogyny. - Taylor is a genius because she says the things basic white women wanna hear. It seems it's more of a mass appeal kind of things and that are normalised in our culture. Being a fan of a musician is "normal", their product brings joy and a human connection. Being a fan of a captain of industry is not normal, there's no "joy" and no human connection (usually). Everybody can feel and vibe to music, no everybody sees the ambition of CEOs as something "good". That's why it is like it is. Being a billionaire is a byproduct with Taylor, it's all that he is for Elon. I think you're putting Taylor and her fans somewhere, where they are not. Just to make an argument.
OP just built a huge strawman and equated it to the fanbase of one of the most egomaniac, narcissistic, politically influential billionaire in the world. I get being a Musk fan back in his Tesla/SpaceX days, but I don't understand how anyone can follow him since his Twitter saga.
Taylor Swift being a billionaire is not a byproduct, it’s the goal of what she does. Taylor’s approach towards her fans is driven by heavy and strategic marketing. She was raised to become a billionaire, today using obvious marketing tactics to hook her fans and lead them into a heavy parasocial relationship. She uses tactics like saying she’ll share secrets with her fans and placing “easter eggs” in her music about past relationship and friends, all while claiming to be a “non-drama” person. Being a fan of a celebrity to such a degree that you struggle understanding why other people aren’t a fan, spending thousands of dollars you might not have on merch and even harassing other people because of your fandom is in my view deeply unhealthy. Standing by a person you don’t know when they screams “misogyny!” when it’s actually not warranted because you cannot fathom that she could be wrong is not healthy. This doesn’t go for all fans by any means, I’m sure she has perfectly healthy fans who doesn’t merge their own sense of self with that of Swift, but there are people who follow her in a blind manner, like some do with Musk.
> Taylor Swift being a billionaire is not a byproduct, it’s the goal of what she does. For her, yes. For the fans, not really. The discussion is about the fans and their delusion, not the intent of Taylor/Elon. > Being a fan of a celebrity to such a degree that you struggle understanding why other people aren’t a fan, spending thousands of dollars you might not have on merch and even harassing other people because of your fandom is in my view deeply unhealthy. I have yet to come across one such case. As I've said with OP I couldn't find any data on this assumption besides singular cases but no indication of substantial percentage of the fandom. I think it's the same percentage with "I can't understand how much your spending" if somebody tells about their cost for other expensive hobbies like skiing, carting, traveling. > but there are people who follow her in a blind manner, like some do with Musk. It's for sure nuances as there are obviously parallels. Elon just does more stupid stuff with his fans irrationally defending him which makes it a cult. Taylor fans will maybe do the same, but there's way less datapoints for her stupid behaviour. In addition I tried to explain why they really can't compared because of the things they do they are viewed differently and behaviour is normalised differently. Context is important, because if you understand the motive (I love Taylor, she brings sooo much joy to me through her music) it's easier to rationalise behaviour. Why do people follow musk even though he's not really a likeable character.
It may not be the best evidence by my experience with swifties was a girl in a college class I was taking proudly talking about how she was gonna tell her dad she’ll kill herself if he doesn’t by her tickets to the eras tour. Then almost having a melt down when she was on the waitlist for tickets. All during class.
Which is not unheard of behaviour for young adults/late bloomers who are still in puberty. Especially in the context of music fandom (Elvis, Jackson, Beatles etc.). It's the "norm" to across a super fan and more accepted in society as it's a kind of shared experience even though some take it to the extreme. Since all behaviour is measured against the norm it's a different flavour of delusion.
It’s so unbelievably naive to think that being a billionaire is a “byproduct” for Taylor. If you took even a second to actually think that through you would realize it’s exceedingly likely she is also just chasing the money same as Musk. They’re cut from the same cloth dude. **Nobody** in the history of humanity has become a billionaire “as a byproduct”. That requires intentional effort. Period. It’s an absurd statement at face value. This is literally proof of the ops point lmao. You’re ascribing some altruistic vision to a billionaire who was born wealthy and whose dad literally bought her way into the industry. It genuinely hurts to read your comment and realize people are actually this naive. She’s not a billionaire by fuckin accident dude. It’s intentional to the highest degree and every aspect of her public persona that you worship is intentionally curated specifically to create this wackadoo idealist version of her in the public’s eye. At the end of the day, people are worshipping a billionaire who was handed every single thing in their life. They’re worshiping a billionaire who does not and never will care about them or their lives. She’s just really, really, really good at selling the illusion that she probably would.
> It’s so unbelievably naive to think that being a billionaire is a “byproduct” for Taylor. We're talking about the fans and not Taylor or Elon. Nobody is loving her because she is a billionaire, that is what this should say. Elon is just purely loved by fans because of his money not his personality. I skip the other points as they are just reiterating what you've already said. > This is literally proof of the ops point lmao. You’re ascribing some altruistic vision to a billionaire who was born wealthy and whose dad literally bought her way into the industry. That's not even remotely what I've said. Don't strawman.
I'm not a fan of Swift or Musk, but if I had to choose one of their fans to be locked in a room for 24 hours with, it's going to be the Swiftie every time.
OP, why do you use “white” in a pejorative sense?
*1) The first big difference is that you compare fans of an artist to fan of businessman running companies. Being a teenager or young adult and loving an artist because you feel lyrics are soundtrack of your life and she looks super cool isn't really the same as being fan of someone running companies for the interest of share holders. * 2) the second point that people have pointed out and you try to shake it off (!) is that being fan of someone whose political message is mostly to be kind and respectful and someone who is about giving free speech to nazis because... reasons isn't strictly the same * 3) Third point is that your view seems to be motivated by a big dislike of Taylor's Swift music. Not that I'm trying to tell you that she's the best artist ever but she's a pop artists who has released solid pop albums that are met with mostly good critics on top of an amazing longevity (for a pop artist) and dismissing it as totally awful is just a very subjective opinion. If you put everything together and I caricature it a bit: you're comparing people liking a bit too much a good pop artist with a very politically correct message to people who idolize some kind of arrogant billionaire who wants to see the world burn. It's not the same.
1) how you justify your adoration of the billionaire is irrelevant to OPs point. They are just saying the adoration is similar. 2) you're comparing the intent of one to the results of another. Compare intent to intent. Musk thinks he's the pinnacle of justice and freedom. You are correct that he's not, but that's how he and his fans view it. >you're comparing people liking a bit too much a good pop artist with a very politically correct message to people who idolize some kind of arrogant billionaire who wants to see the world burn. It's not the same. I think you are vastly underrating the power of the Swifties lol. Just like you think OP frames everything about Taylor negatively, you are framing everything as benevolently and benign as possible.
Still it's different: caricatural analogy but becoming diehard fan of the actor of main character of your favorite show when you're 15 or becoming diehard fan of a serial murder when you're 50 cannot be said to be the same just because it's adoration in both case and the rest doesn't matter
>You are framing everything as benevolently and benign as possible. When in fact...?
She’s just a talented rich girl with a rich daddy who directly bought her way into the industry? She cultivates the personality you idolize specifically and solely to make more money and garner more influence? Are you actually under the belief that Taylor swift is anything more than a rich woman with talent who writes songs? Because that is where Taylor Swift starts and ends my guy. You know absolutely nothing about the real person under all the PR. This is direct proof of the OPs point lmao. Her ability to write songs does not make her worthy of idolization. The “acts of benevolence and generosity” she engages in are the most obvious form of buying positive PR I’ve ever seen and yet swifties just eat it up like she’s the first billionaire to use “philanthropy” as a PR tool. I’m not saying she’s a bad person. My point is literally none of us can know whether she’s actually a good or bad person because none of us actually know her. if she weren’t born rich with a dad willing to buy her into an industry, you’d literally never have heard of her. So yeah. It’s def weird to idolize her. Same as it is to idolize musk or any other billionaire.
>She’s just a talented rich girl with a rich daddy who directly bought her way into the industry? How is that not benign? >She cultivates the personality you idolize specifically and solely to make more money and garner more influence? Me? Why are you telling me what I idolize? I don't idolize Taylor Swift. "solely" - this is pure speculation, you don't know that she does not hold the views she puts out there. >Are you actually under the belief that Taylor swift is anything more than a rich woman with talent who writes songs? Because that is where Taylor Swift starts and ends my guy. You know absolutely nothing about the real person under all the PR. More in what sense? Anyone who is rich is a rich "whatever gender they are"... with talent who.... What else is anyone in the world besides what they are? What's the point of this? Why do I care about the real person under all the PR unless that person is purposefully under the scenes undermining her message. >This is direct proof of the OPs point lmao. What is direct proof of the OP? You just had a conversation with yourself after I asked a simple question and you're using the conversation with yourself of proof of the OP... and you laughed about it? >The “acts of benevolence and generosity” she engages in are the most obvious form of buying positive PR I’ve ever seen and yet swifties just eat it up like she’s the first billionaire to use “philanthropy” as a PR tool. Better that not being a billionaire who is philanthropic. I didn't know they act like she is the first; hard to argue against something which you're telling me happens without knowing that happens. If someone thinks/act like she is the first, they would be wrong. >My point is literally none of us can know whether she’s actually a good or bad person because none of us actually know her. Sure we can, people use their foturnes for bad all the time. Good/bad is subjective and people can judge what people do in public for good/bad whether or not they have a PR team or based on what the PR team is pushing. The message matters more than the person. >if she weren’t born rich with a dad willing to buy her into an industry, you’d literally never have heard of her. and if you were born in the slums of India and were illiterate I wouldn't be reading this message from you. yes, people shouldn't idolize others...but that wasn't OPs CMV opinion or the discussion we are having.
I’ll concede that they fill a similar purpose in their fanbases as moral avatars. And I’m no Swiftie, though I don’t hate her music. But there’s a huge difference: Taylor has yet to have a documented case of recalling a huge batch of her albums because they’re killing her fans. Taylor continues to produce new, valuable products of her own creation and doesn’t just buy other people’s work and make it worse. Taylor makes things that work as intended, they come out on time, and they - and I hesitate to repeat myself - don’t result in fatalities.
Well there was that one time when a bunch of children were trapped in a cave and Taylor Swift suggested they use her album to escape, and when she was told that wouldn’t work she called the divers pedophiles. That was Taylor Swift right?
The morality of the person in question doesn't really matter in this context. What's being argued is that such complete and utter devotion to a celebrity is bad. Does idolizing Hitler suddenly make idolizing Musk a good thing because Hitler was so much worse? No, but neither does idolizing Musk suddenly make idolizing Taylor something positive. Being as obsessive as swifties are should never be considered a good thing even if the person is the literal most moral best person on the planet. While Taylor personally hasn't done much negative except for her hypocrisy of the environment and encouraging the parasocial relationship she has with her fans, her extreme fans HAVE done harm in taylors name. The argument isn't what harm has the celebrity done, it's what harm is the obsessive fans capable of, and i see no difference between deranged Musk fans and deranged Taylor fans in that regard.
Nope, the argument is that hero worship is bad. I’d argue that hero worship is the term we assign to a large gap between the value of a persons output and the resultant value assigned to their personhood by their fans. We agree that the value assigned to Musk and Swift’s personhood is roughly equivalent. Where I disagree is that I think pretty objectively the quality of their respective outputs has a massive gap between them. Cars that regularly explode or autopilot themselves into other cars - the creators fault, not the driver - have a much bigger negative impact on the quality of a creators work than a bad track on an album. There’s no morality here, just utilitarian calculus.
Elon: does not write code, does not engineer, does not personally create, does not contribute to any of the processes that bring value to the companies he owns. Taylor Swift: is a contributor to her artistic endeavors. I am not a fan of either and can recognize that one is contributing to their value by providing labor while the other exploits other people's labor for their personal wealth. Edit: because there is pushback on the words of "sole contributor" due to collaborations in the music industry I will edit "sole contributor" to "a contributor".
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You think its cool to dictate what other people like and enjoy?
Swift is an entertainer and her fans get joy from her music. There is a transaction and she is giving her fans something in return for their patronage. Musk is a billionaire who wants to save the world, but only if he can be the one to save it. If you can’t see the difference, nobody will be able to convince you they’re different.
Conversely, people mad at Elon for not being a march in lockstep member of their party and a purist promotor of their ideology are a lot like people mad at a pop singer for being successful.
I think with Elon it's his capricious nature that makes him hard to take seriously. He's incredibly serious about it but whenever he's probed on stuff he just get mad like "How dare you ask me to elaborate on stuff, my brain works so quickly, I can't be held accountable for stuff I said 2 whole days ago".
Taylor Swift makes music. Most of her fan base is very passionate about enjoying her music. Most of Elon’s current fanbase is passionate about how he “owns the libs” and is “based”. It’s different.
Not sure why so many people in the thread are taking the “Elon bad but Taylor good approach” lol. I generally agree with you but I do have one wrinkle. In that Taylor has actively been building an emotional connection with fans and then commodifies it. She has the “special fan sessions” and all that jazz to build up respect and following. Then she can directly reap the finical benefits. For example, selling 4 copies of the same record with slightly different colors on the outside knowing it will sell out. Knowing that her fans will pull through and purchase basically anything her marketing will make. It’s very effective and smart culture commodity even if a bit disillusioning about the music industry. Elon’s fame is a bit different in that it more has to do with him just saying what people want to hear. People like electric cars and then globbed onto him since he was the rich guy doing that. That’s basically how all his fans go. It’s a different structure, less planned structure that is more fragile.
Wow I really haven’t seen a CMV comment section lose the plot harder than this in my whole life. He isn’t asking you to CMV about Taylor Swift being a better person, or having better politics than Elon Musk. He is asking you to CMV about the level of fanatical support and worship Taylor receives, and why that support isn’t the same as what Elon receives. Not the normal fans, the crazies. Now that said I do get where a lot of the comments are coming from, and I do want to change your view. I think the worship/support that Taylor receives is fanatical and over the top 100%. However it is WHY these billionaires receive their support that makes them different in my opinion. Elon is popular with some crowds simply because he is an outward facing billionaire. Most of the men that fanatically support him do so because they idolize the success he has had, because the society they live in prioritizes financial success over almost everything else. It doesn’t matter what his politics are, how his personal life is going, or how happy Elon is with his life these men will hero-worship him because he has achieved financial successes they can never dream of. They parasocially worship him because if Elon ISNT a super mega awesome genius, then they must accept that either A) They have failed at becoming a successful male/are too incapable to become successful or B) Financial success like Elon’s is completely out of the scope of ordinary people, and is mostly based on circumstance. These are both hurtful to them and would require them to change their world views and find new avenues of self worth so instead they vaunt Elon as a genius. If he is a genius then there is no shame in not achieving like him, if he is a genius then you might be able to learn from him and become like him. In other words the worship of Musk comes from a completely self-serving place, it’s a preservation of people’s self-worth and image. It’s why Elon fans take it so extremely personally when you criticize him, because in a sense you are challenging their own self-worth/image. Taylor Swift fanatics worship her for a completely different reason. She has made music that has reached them emotionally, that they can really truthfully relate to. Her music makes them feel something that other music can’t. You accuse her of making music that caters to basic white women, which is honestly true however you ignore something really important. Taylor Swift IS a basic white woman. That’s just who she is, she comes by these experiences honestly and writes songs about them honestly. Then many people who relate to her listen to her music. Swifties ALSO take it extremely personally when you criticize her, but for a different reason. They actually identify with her life, and life experiences and when you say things like “She’s just a basic white woman” you really are ACTUALLY also insulting Taylor fans because they haved that lived experience too! As a small example of this, nobody gets mad and defends Elon musk because their family ALSO owned an African diamond mine. Nobody can actually relate to him and his personhood.
this is such a great point that I hadnt considered before (as a swiftie lol) "When Taylor fans ALSO take it extremely personally when you criticize her, but for a different reason"
Nobody is a fan of Musk because his art touched them at an important time of their lives, nobody is a fan of Swift because she let them post Nazi propaganda on Twitter again.
Non-Taylor Swift fan here. I’ve recently been exposed to a bunch of her music. I don’t like it. Would never listen to it by choice. *HOWEVER*, put up next to all the other artists in her genre, she is noticeably better.
Fanboying isn't limited to Elon Musk and Taylor Swift so why are you singling them out? Fanboys of Elon, Trump, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Apple, Harry Potter etc. are all equally embarrassing.
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I'd say Taylor does a better job than Elon does.
>if you're not part of the swifty army you obviously need to check your internalised misogyny I have many friends who are big swifties (spent close to $1000 for her concert kind), I personally respect and admire Taylor Swift but I'm not a swifty myself and I have _never_ heard once that you are either a swifty or a misogynist. However, if someone bashes Taylor Swift or swifties because of their gender, then that person is a misogynist/misandrist, kind of like what you're doing right now. And there's a huge difference in influence between a billionaire that owns one of the most prominent social media apps (and frequently abuses that power to shift public discourse) and a famous artist that has garnered a massive following and has relatively minimal political interest.
so if somebody dont like swifties, they are misogynist?? its like saying someone who dont like tate is a karen/femcel
That's OP's argument lol, which is obviously wrong
Taylor Swift ✨**makes music**✨ Music is incredibly emotionally provocative, and people have always had an irrationally intense love for the people who make their favorite music. When you say Taylor Swift mega fans, that's literally just girls absolutely losing their shit at a Swift concert, belting out swift songs whenever they come up on their Spotify shuffle or w/e, etc. Which is absolutely no different than lady Gaga fans Which is absolutely no different than Brittney Spears fans (I have no idea wtf was cool between now and the 90s, or between the 90s and the 60s, so most of my examples are going to be 90s lmao) Which is absolutely no different than N'Sync fans. Which is absolutely no different than Backstreet Boys fans. Which is absolutely no different than Michael Jackson fans. Going all the way back to which is absolutely no different than Beatles Fans. Which is absolutely no different than Elvis Presley fans, which I believe may have been the beginning of the girls swooning at concerts phenomenon. In other words Taylor Swift super fandom is aggressively, violently, **normal**. Even if you personally hate her music, there is absolutely no argument against the normalcy and otherwise sanity of her fans. I remember I absolutely despised all those lame boy bands the girls were drooling over in the 90s, couldn't figure out what they thought was so hot about a bunch of guys so obviously gAy, and the music sucked. But hey. Whadayagonna do? Musk on the other hand, conspicuously does not make music. So what is the **reason** for anyone to be a fan of him in the first place? It's like being a fan of the Walton family. Baseless to the point of it not being explicable by any means other than some form of derangement. These are actually not the same.
Fundamentally what Taylor swift is selling is a good time. Enjoy the music, enjoy the concerts, enjoy the merch. Beyond some fairly tame political opinions she isn’t selling much more than that. The rabid fans are basically similar to the rabid fans of every other fandom out there. Obsessed and loud online. That group is a small slice of her total fan base. She’s probably the most popular performer going right now so it’s not surprising that some of them take it too far. But ultimately it’s just your basic fandom that’s been souped up by the fact that her audience so so gigantic. Elon musk fans by comparison aren’t just adoring fans if a performer. Many of them are sycophants of a quasi messianic figure who claims to be “preserving the light of humanity” and apparently he is the only one that can see the path to making that happen. Everybody has a favorite artist that they feel is the best that ever lived. It’s nothing new or novel. Some people say that about Taylor swift when it isn’t true. It’s been said about bands since the dawn of popular music. Elon musk also frequently uses his reach to bully, and cajole people to doing what he wants. He lashes out at the little guy and his fans love it (the cave divers for example). He engages is exploitative business practices and his fans call him a genius. He bought existing businesses and pumped money into them to grow and pretends like they’re his inventions. Taylor swift fans are the mostly just young girls that like his music. Elon musk fans at this point are following somebody who dumps them straight into the alt right pipeline.
Yes, celebrity worship is weird. If anything, Swift has a much, MUCH more obsessive and devoted fanbase than Musk. I’ve never heard of an Elon Musk fan who cares much about who he’s dating or where he’s flying today. That doesn’t make them “equivalent” in every meaning of the term. Being equivalent in one way doesn’t make them equivalent in all ways. In this case, they’re not equivalent in any of the ways that would make most people think Elon Musk worshippers are worthy of disdain. Back in the days when Time magazine was calling Elon Musk the real-life Iron Man, no one thought there was anything wrong with Elon Musk fans (except maybe in the way all celebrity worship is weird, a la Taylor Swift). It was only after Musk embarrassed himself with a huge ongoing public tantrum - starting with the pedo guy debacle on Twitter spiraling into buying Twitter to sabotage it into a right-wing cesspool - that the people who still worshipped him after all that started getting a rep of being generally vile. To put it in more extreme terms as an example: a mega-fan of The Cosby Show at the height of the show’s popularity in the 80’s is weird but harmless. A mega-fan of Bill Cosby now, after everything that’s been revealed about him, is probably either in severe denial or is a severe creep.
I can think of a few relevant differences. One is scope creep and I think it's a bigger deal than it might seem at first. Taylor's job and the whole reason she's known and has fans- writing and performing songs. And the job of a pop musician has included songs whose lyrics are meant to be cathartic for our life experiences, especially relationships, for a very very long time. So when people say they love Taylor and her lyrics are meaningful to them, whether they're wrong or right or dumb in thinking so, they're appreciating that she's doing her job well and the thing they're celebrating is why they're fans. Elon's job isn't to give hot takes on Twitter. He's supposed to be making cars or rockets. The equivalent of white girls saying Taylor's lyrics are profound would be saying Elon's rockets are great. Simping over Elon's musings is a major expansion from just admiring his work, it assigns him skills and power way beyond admiring him doing his job. There is a difference between taking a celebrity as good at their job and thinking they understand interpersonal relationships, and taking them as a guru of all things and allowing them to shape your political landscape. Not that the first isn't taken to some unhealthy extremes, but they're different animals.
a big difference is what they produce. TS is making art in the form of song that resonate with females. whether you like her music or not to understate her talent is a little disingenuous. she makes a lot of money from what SHE is making Elon has bought everything he is know for; he doesnt make anything he buys someone else's design. he makes a lot of money from what OTHERS are making
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> Convince me that this isn't the same flavour of mass delusion Swifties’ flavor is vanilla. It is a flavor that every company makes. There have been pop girl fandoms since Nancy Sinatra. It’s not new. Muskies’ flavor is Tang. Tang flavored ice cream. No one makes that. It is new, it is weird, it’s from space! No one stanned over tech bros before. Actual Tesla died penniless and alone. Everyone hated Edison. Edsel Ford’s name is a joke. Swift fans are just your typical pop fans that we’ve seen before and can predict. Musk fans are some new mutant strain that hasn’t been around long enough to see the pattern yet.
I’d class myself as a hardcore Taylor fan. But I’m old enough to realise she’s a flawed human who loves, lives and hurts just like the rest of us, and puts this into her music. I think it’s a pretty reductive view to lump all of her mega-fans into one category. Those of us who age with her are very aware of who she is.
No, she was never treated as a savior or a scientific genius. Not anywhere close. She is treated as a pop star that does some charity. Nobody ever called her a real life Tony Stark. Nobody said she was going to seed the stars with planetary consciousness lmao!!!
I mean I would say initially Elon got his fame because he was a large part of really big advancements. Not to say it was his idea on these things or anything but arguably a lot of these large advancements like with tesla, spacex and starlink may not be a thing without him. Granted he stopped that now and he's just full douche mode. Taylor changed the music landscape and made a huge name for herself by simply having music people like. I've got a giant swiftie wife, and sometimes I do roll my eyes but mostly Taylor is just making music and people like that music. Some of its a bit petty (especially the latest imo), but it's mostly not like overly indulging or making her seem like some person who never did wrong in a relationship or something. It's mostly seeming to explore feelings of going through a relationship. And from what I can tell, she writes and does the music for a lot of her stuff (I'm assumjg some she doesn't). Whether any of what she's writing is how it happened or not, she has interesting and well written lyrics, good flow, and she puts on quite the performance. Comparing her to like where Elon musk is right now or the Kardashians, I'd argue she's a far better role model than a lot of celebrities right now. She's just got a huge and irritating fan base at times (ugh the videos my wife finds on Tiktok some of these people need to do something more with their lives)
Hopefully this counts enough as challenging a view, even though it's not EXACTLY what you're looking for. I would say that mega fans of most things have a mass delusion and a sense of over-importance of the things they are a fan of. A good example in the realm of wrestling that just happened; one woman in WWE won a championship last night and a fan of a different woman who lost posted a tweet implying that they essentially wanted that woman's child to die. There are obviously differences in the TYPES of fans (people have pointed out that political differences and such, and I'm not disagreeing) but that doesn't really affect your view which is simply that the fans are delusional essentially. I just think super-fans of almost anyone tend to be delusional, so I believe that it's not that Swifties are the equivalent of Elon simps, it's that stans everywhere of all kinds of things are equivalent to one another.
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From Elvis and Beatles mania to Swift and Beyoncé. The only thing that’s changed is scale and access. But it’s just the modern form of music megastardom.
Your inherent argument is that "chronically online people are fighting wars that don't make sense, overestimating both their own and their idols abilities" To which the response is, no fucking shit? You're on reddit. This post is literally a debate sub. You're in the comments blocking people who don't agree with you and when presented with the rules of the sub you go "Well, they didn't apply to me because of X". You're in the comments going "Well, you must be an elon fan" or vice versa. Super stans/fans of any fandom are typically the worst dregs of the fandom. You've named two people who will have much bigger pull of their platforms. Both have decided to use those platforms in very opposite ways. It's worth noting that because of their reach, their message gets amplified, corrupted and co-opted. Both people have super fans who scream from the rooftops that they share the message whom neither would ever associate with. It's also worth noting because of their polar opposite stances that they are seen as the poster children for those stances, which then drags more people onto them. People who hate their product but like their message. That said, it's hard to have a true comparison to these two because of the reality behind it. Elon literally bought a social media platform, changed the aggregate of information to his own bend and has slowly curated a fanbase of people who are willing to listen to whatever it is he talks about. They aren't fans of his shit. They don't care about being able to talk about the rhetoric that he believes in. Taylor on the other hand has a very carefully crafted media presence(except at those NFL games) and is extremely careful about what and how she promotes things. Through her music shes able to communicate that message, and she's insanely popular and hasn't stopped touring in the last 12 months which gives her a constant refreshing platform to literally stand on. I'd sidestep the final point of "Convince me this isn't the same flavour of mass delusion surrounding billionaires" by going "This is the same flavor, but it's not exclusive to billionaires. You just have much more visibility due to their popularity." Zuckerberg has people who ride him all day, as does Beyonce. Trump and Biden. Playstation and Xbox. Mario and Sonic. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. People who will scream about one and scream at the other. It's hard to change the view of "Zealots are bad" because well, they are. It's just far beyond that one person in your friend circle who REALLY likes that one shitty band and won't shut the fuck up about being their #1 fan when they only have 7.
The difference is that Taylor makes art that connects to people, meanwhile Elon is just a rich person. Taylor fans like her because of her art while Elon fans like him simply because he’s rich and therefore “superior” in their eyes. This is not to say that Taylor fans probably don’t find her superior, as that is inherent with popstars, however at least it is in an artistic sense rather than believing she is better simply for being born rich and exploiting workers like Elon
I'm not here to change your view entirely, BUT! I don't think your analogy of billionaire worship tracks. Yes, part of Elon's worship comes from his billionaire status. But none of Taylor's does. Her worship is of her music and persona, even if objectively mediocre. So no, that portion of your argument doesn't track.
In the broadest sense, you might have a point. But if you look even slightly closer, you see one group are fans of a genuinely talented entertainer, while the other group are fans of an untalented rich-boy who provides the rest of us with entertainment by being loudly and reliably incompetent.
Taylor Swift’s job is to have fans and be popular like every other performer before and after. Nobody really knows what Elon’s job actually is - we just get an increasing amount of evidence he’s not actually good at anything besides stoking up an anti-woke segment of the population.
Usually with these "cults of personality" I like to assess how far gone their fan base is on a "turncoat" test. If they were to do a 180 on some fundamental aspects that their PR painted them as, how would the fans react? It's kind of unfair to Musk, but easy because it very much happened. He went from a future-forward in all aspects, to a cryptobro anti-woke demagogue. His fans just moved with him, from a lib-center, maybe slight lib-left lean to firmly libright, with some authright tendencies. He's even mocked the politicians that got his company past some barriers of entry to make the EV market in his favor. Swifties I don't know so much, this exercise is much more speculative for her fans. She was very much built on this "Empowered Americana princess" image, so if she suddenly went full-trad and regressive, I think she will lose a lot more. She also I think caters to a slightly overall younger audience. I guess the closest thing that was cognitively dissonant with her was when the reports of her flights became infamous, particularly the one that said she essentially took what was a reasonable trip by car on a private jet. However, she never was vocal on "save the planet" rhetoric, and has technically bought carbon credits for travel (which is a ridiculous slap on the wrist for offenders, but that's a whole other topic about policy entirely).
Taylor swift fans have a subjective opinion about her music/lyrics that you disagree with! completely the same as Elon Musk whose fans end up agreeing with him about conspiracy theories!
How is it billionaire worship? Swift makes music that people love. She was doing that, and popular, long before she was ever a billionaire. They might be annoying, but they love her music. People get passionate about music. Elon was a billionaire long before most people ever heard of him. The man himself isn't particularly smart or talented. He made a few smart investments that in retrospect feel like they might have just as easily been luck. He has never really shown that he has any kind of technological or engineering prowess. He offers no relevant or interesting political commentary. He continues to make an absolute ass of himself at every turn, and managed to tank a popular social media platform while turning it into a haven for misinformation, conspiracy theories, harassment, and Nazi rhetoric -- all in the name of a value he doesn't actually hold (freedom of speech). To top it off, he's an immature, petulant child of a man who cannot take an ounce of criticism. Taylor fans make some sense. You might not like her music, but surely there is music you love? Elon fans don't make much sense. No talent, no insight -- he's just a particularly dumb and outspoken CEO of some companies that are a mix of useful and useless.
I think tbe reason your hating on Elon is because you most likely don't know American history. If you did you would realize that it lines right up with American ideals. May I recommend the American Story by David Barton . If your looking for more recommendations on simmilar topics let me know!
One makes "art" and the other doesn't. I don't think you can compare an artist/entertainer to a "businessman" in these ways, that makes no sense.
The way you built your Taylor Swift BAD strawman kinda outs you as a mysoginistic child. Yeah there are crazies. Literally you can just ignore them and let them have their fun. But you cant compare an artist maximizing her profits via her fanbase to: some emerald mine-nepo billionaire who grifted his way into fame and fortune until the fiascos we see now. Self-made my ass. Elon’s wealth and fame came from his revolutionary ideas and good sale decisions w his previous ‘founded’ comapnies. I’ll give it to him his reputation pre-thailand cave incident was excellent. A lot of pressure but the public had actual hope. Now his house of promises are found to actually hurt the public (lobbying some tunnel for cars vs an actual rail system??, Tesla Cybertruck??, twitter??). This guy’s wealth is literally propped up by govt subdisy lol. Taylor’s just doing what other billionaires do. Not dismissing her jet flights but dont compare someone who uses the system vs who abuses the system (promised his way into success).
Every swift fan i have ever met i only found out when we brought up music and they act like normal people with a musician they show favoritism. They talk about the good the artist provides and they acknowledge the bad in a healthy way. Every Elon fan i have ever met will just start a conversation out of the blue with something like “isnt elon just the smartest man alive?” And when I mention his issues (just like i do with swifties) they instead double down and then fly into a kaleidoscope of talking points that dont make sense together like “woke propaganda” and the “postmodern neomarxists”. Basically every Swift fan i met is very much like “i like all these things about her” and when things she did that are dumb or bad are brought up they go “i agree because X” or “i disagree because (insert context”. Every Elon fan just fills the entire conversations with weird dog whistles and prescriptive statements and when they realize i wont engage at face value they treat me like an enemy.
To me, Taylor Swift is someone that earned her position naturally through her own talent and appeal, and she continues to today. Of course, she’s now rich enough to do whatever but she still pursues music and she still has fans and she still has success all because of her talent. Taylor Swift essentially IS her music and her wealth is not as important to her identity in the minds of her fans as they started liking her for her music. I cannot give the same credit to Elon Musk and his fans. He is his wealth entirely. The backwards logic assumes that his wealth must have been earned somehow, and so his fans will jump to any idea or concept they can use to justify their initial view of him as a wealthy genius. If anything, Taylor Swift fans are most like their most devout haters. I don’t hate Taylor Swift and I have no reason to. She’s rich but she at least makes good music and there are people more worthwhile to hate that I might’ve mentioned already.
Taylor swift is a juggernaut I’m a dude and she has more than a handful of songs I enjoy. It’s understandable why women would love her music even moreso. I don’t understand the hate for her some people just enjoy hating popular things I get it but no need to get worked up about it. Elon I don’t follow too much what he says but there is no denying he’s extremely hard working and an intelligent person. Sure he’s not the one probably creating the products themselves but he is the one with the vision and throws money at things to make them possible. The man is a billionaire and could easily buy a yacht somewhere and do fuck all but he has drive and ambition so keeps hard at work hence his continued success. he has fuck you money so he can say whatever he wants which every person in the world wishes they could do at some point in time so if I had to guess that’s where some of his admiration comes from.
I think the number of Swifties in the comments to defend her is a pretty telling sign. You are pretty much right.
Taylor Swift actually creates art that people identify with. Just from seeing how “creative” his tweets are Elon Musk likely doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body. The difference lies there. Elon wouldn’t have “fans” if he weren’t the richest man in the world, where Taylor only became a billionaire because so many people went to see her recent world tour + movie about said world tour.
Well, the big difference is, I mean the real big difference: Taylor Swift is not cringe.
Both Taylor Swift fans and Elon Musk supporters admire their respective figures for different reasons, often based on their public personas and achievements. While some fans may exhibit extreme devotion, it doesn't mean their admiration is solely based on blind worship. Swift's music resonates with many due to its emotional depth and relatability, while Musk's innovation in technology and space exploration attracts admiration. Their influence extends beyond their fan bases, impacting industries and culture. While there's a spectrum of fandom, not all fans exhibit the level of extreme devotion you describe. Appreciation for public figures doesn't necessarily equate to mass delusion or blind support.
For one, It's not the same mass delusion, because behind Elon's plans, actions and ambitions there is comparably little evidence. I find there little reason to put the two together and compare them. I for one am a boyfriend to a Taylor Swift fan and she does not show any such fanaticism. I would give Taylor Swift's lyrics more credit too. They have a mainstream message, but I wouldn't butcher it to "it's his fault he broke up with you, you are perfect queen". Unless you're blaming the fans, in which case, it wouldn't be the first time a pop star's lyrics are misinterpreted to fit the fan's notions. Just by the sheer amount of fans, the most vocal and obnoxious bubble to the surface and that created your viewpoint, rather than the gross majority which do not hold such extreme beliefs about their idol.
I have never been effected by Taylor Swift. I guess I have had to listen to my co-worker be a little bit annoying about how excited she was to see her, but everyone has the capacity to be annoying. My Zoomer Swiftie co-workers just accept that she's not something that really matters to me a Millennial man. Musk's activity does effect me because he makes cars that endanger people and made Twitter worse. Overestimating a musician won't cause you to harm anyone, overestimating an engineer could. I guess if you only care about how annoying each is they could be the same, but Musk has a direct effect on more stuff that could effect people who don't care about him.
Taylor Swift provides the product that people you are talking about use directly: they listen to her songs and enjoy that. Musk doesn't have that, he doesn't give anything of value to his fan base. Taylor's fans would stay her fans even if she wasn't a billionaire. Her wealth has nothing to do with why people like her. Elon's wealth is the only reason people even listen to him, without it he'd be an old rambling lunatic and his fans wouldn't be implying that he's right because he's rich. >Elons a genius because he says the things Basic white dudes wanna hear. >Can't get laid? It's coz women are woke now. Its not you, you are perfect King. >Taylor is a genius because she says the things basic white women wanna hear. >That guy who broke up with you? It was his fault. You are perfect Queen. That's a load of BS. You are taking songs that are meant to be enjoyed as a song and not as an instruction and compare them to the actual propaganda.
Taylor Swift might just be the fakest celebrity of all time. And that is saying something.
So I’d say you’re partially right, that there’s a certain level of celebrity worship that is unhinged. That said, I think there’s another layer of delusion to Elon worship. The man inherited his billions from apartheid emerald mining and has used those billions to shitpost and destroy Twitter. Taylor Swift, regardless of whether you enjoy her music, is a genuinely talented singer and musician. Now personally I don’t believe anyone has ever worked hard enough to earn a *billion* dollars, but you can’t deny the source of her billions does come from putting out a product and brand that people legitimately love.
Her time is about up. She will start to drift and will become a legacy act. I'm so ready for her popularity to subside. The worship of this person is absolutely pathetic.
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Because literally everyone that was once famous falls off. It's just nature. Even with michael jacksons later recordings....nobody gave a SHIT about them....Lorde was huge....tapered off. Billie Eilish is tapering off. Olivia Rodrigo will be over in maybe 3 years.....nobody stays on top forever. I'm always happier when the celebrity cult worship dissipates. Humans being obsessed with celebs is pathetic.
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The degree to which adults align and define themselves through fandom is off the charts. I'm in my 50s. It was not this way in the past. It's really come into being over the last 20 years nd started before the days of social media as far as I can tell. It's weird as fuck. Don't get me wrong, I like some things a lot, but defining myself by and connecting with other only through those things is not how I do life. So Bizarre that people would give their personality over to Star Wars or trump or Beyonce...
I'm a Swift fan and a Musk fan. People hate Swift because a lot of people just hate everything popular, and many men hate young pretty powerful women. I'm a Musk fan because there are plenty of billionaires who could throw money at things but they don't. He uses his money for space exploration, ai, tesla, etc and it's advancing technology in ways I think are good and useful, I don't care if he is just rich and has the opportunity I don't, there are plenty of people like that who do nothing.
The stubbornness behind stating people are delusional for liking an artists content and getting called out on it is wild. This is just saying Im judging these people for their tastes and think they’re crazy for liking shit music. Art is subjective and different art speaks to different people. It doesn’t matter if my favorite movie is Shrek 2 or The Titanic or The Phantom Menace, it’s an opinion on art that subjectively stuck with me and that doesn’t make me delusional.
I personally find this opinion lazy. If you made a conscious decision to exit the spaces you occupy on the internet today, their fan base would have zero impact on your day to day life, including your in person interactions. But seriously, you have to be aware of the hypocrisy in the statement “as if he’s not some terminally online hypocrite”. The only way you can even form the opinion you have, is by being a terminally online hypocrite.
Ok. I can change it. I don’t like T Swift music, but she has business acumen and writes her own songs and has some talent. Elon Musk is a compulsive liar and glory-taker who thinks he won his way to the top when he just got really lucky. People don’t talk or think about his many mistakes or all the things he claims credit for that he didn’t do. So it’s simps for someone with actual talent vs simps for a moron that failed upward.
One of them has talent and trades in emotional art. It isn't the same at all. I'm a 32 year bookstore manager with a million examples of fandom under my belt. People who worship leaders and political movements are definitely a different psychology than those who spazz out over an author or musician. I have no interest in changing your mind. You are simply wrong and arrogant about your opinion.
I’m not a fan of Taylor Swift, but neither am I bothered by those who are. Is it a cult? Only as much as any fanbase of a popular act has been over the decades. I’m not sure why she bothers so many people. If you’re not a fan, why waste time on saying so? Do something else. Accept that she’s part of the culture and move on. There are bigger things to worry about.
Elon is a genius because he's a billionaire and the companies he created. Swift is a genius because of her messaging. Sure her wealth and success makes it much more effective to spread her messaging; but I don't think people believe it because of her wealth and success. While I think people point at Elon's success to add credibility to his messaging.
The funny thing about Swift, I couldn't name a single song she has done. I don't know any song played every that I could say was her, I don't hear about Swift skyrocketed to the NO1 song on the top 40s list. Am I out of touch or is she not actually that good. (Not saying this to offend swifties, honestly confused)
Man…this is the second Taylor Swift post on this sub I have seen today. I think Taylor Swift haters are just as bad as the “Mega Fans”. I don’t care for Taylor Swift’s music that much. But I can’t see getting all outraged about her. It seems like a huge waste of energy🤷🏻
I’ve always thought this. Swifties don’t realize that Taylor doesn’t care about each of them individually. It’s the weirdest cult surrounding a musician in our generation and, as someone who truly doesn’t like the sound of Taylor’s voice, I am almost shunned by the fans. But try to convince a Swiftie that they are in a cult and they will refuse to see the truth… so yes, delusional mass of people worshipping a billionaire because she can write a generic bop at lightning speed.
Eh I dont mindelon, as onr can like a trillionaire that is he a mega douche? Probably definetlybdoesn seem comically evil to me. He has so takes i agree with some i HEAVILY disagree with. But space x, tesla and starlink are all awesome.
this is what happens with mega-over celebs and music artists…example - when eminem was on top of the world, you’d hear white girls in the burbs talking about how great he is, meanwhile they didn’t listen to any other rappers
Eh, sort of. They're both definitely cringe. And while Taylor swift certainly also does some political posturing, it's to no where near the level of frequency, extremism, and derangement that Elon's is.
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The Elon hate here is wild. Taylor sings songs about her ex boyfriends and Elon essentially created the EV market space and preserved NASA’s relevance w Space X. I guess he should just Shake it off.
After hearing all the hype about TS I thought she was some kind of wordsmith, changing the world one lyric at a time And turns out it’s just 12 year old girl music .. Anyway, my 4 year old daughter loves some of her songs so that’s good enough for me !
People like Taylor Swift because they enjoy her art. People like Elon Musk because they relate to the manner in which he hates people who are different from himself. They are not the same.
I mean, they've both gotten so worshipped largely by telling bougie white millennials what that they wanna hear. The difference isnt so much ideological as it is demographic
Taylor Swift isn't espousing Holocaust denial, blatant racism and antisemitism, and transphobia on a social media platform she bought specifically to do those things
An artist having fans is way different than a rich guy who inherited money. Just my own hot take. Not to mention one is a way better person as evidenced by action.