Literally all of this started with people hating Elon Musk. It’s only focused on her now because she is currently harassing the guy tracking her jet.
If you went back a year or so ago, when Elon was the focus of this instead of her, would you be complaining about how a man is getting more flak than a woman?
I’ll just point out that there’s a significant difference between wanting someone to be a role model for others and having someone as a role model for yourself. IMO, more people view Swift as the former, and most who hold musk in high regard are the latter.
I didn’t see many memes about Swift’s plane usage till she threatened the kid tracking her flights. If that’s not just me, then she deserves it for making a stink about publicly available information.
She only threatened legal action after those memes started and when her flight movements got the attention of the right in an attempt to make her less credible of a voice speaking out against trump.
And knowing how batshit insane trump cultists can be and how she’s basically the single most hated person of his base I’m not surprised that she feared for her security.
Those records were public for years but the legal action only happened after someone created those memes and even fox news suddenly cared about plane emissions…
I think hating equally based on a single metric is never a based take. If being a billionaire makes you evil then surely having 205.2B makes you a whole lot worse (185 times worse) than having 1.1B.
Also you can like things people do while disagreeing with their ways. Sounds like Swift donates a decent sum while being shitty for having a private jet.
Not trying to stick up for Swift, just trying to add nuance to the conversation.
Sure, and I would say we send at least 185 times more hate towards musk. This is a meme about airplanes, nobody has been calling her a nazi or an apartheid nepo baby or anything.
On a more serious note, this is actually a perfect demonstration of why intersectionality is vital, and how classism and sexism intersect - this isn't, and shouldn't be reduced to "either/or", we can hate and fight against billionaires for being exploitative oppressive capitalists, and misogynists who only hate Swift for being a woman singing for other women..
as much as I hate billionaires, it is kinda sus how disproportionately online goobers seem to hate swift. Its even worse when you consider she’s probably the only billionaire that works for a living
Yup. Tom Cruise, Jim Carrey, and Steven Spielberg have private jets too. Many more lease them.
Sure let’s talk about how it’s not cool to use a private jet, but maybe let’s not be hyper fixated on a woman that owns a private jet. Kinda makes it very suspicious that people actually just have an issue with a woman being successful.
None of them sent a cease and desist to a 19 year old kid, because he was broadcasting publicly available data about their private jets. Taylor and Elon did.
Just in the last week or so Swift sent a cease and desist to the kid tracking her and other celebrities jets, aka already publicly available information. Just like when Elon tried to stop him, by trying to stop him she has Streisand effected the situation.
If and when Tom Cruise, Jim Carrey, or Steven Spielberg send their own cease and desist, then we can start making jet memes about them, too. Until then, they’ve got other shitty things we can bring up. Cruise is a cultist, Jim Carrey is/was an anti-vaxxer, and Spielberg… actually, I can’t think of anything else for him, let the Spielberg jet memes commence I guess.
She recently tried to sue someone for tracking her jet, that’s why she’s catching a lot of heat right now. It isn’t sus, its the same reaction musk got when he tried to do the same thing to the same person in 2022/23
Fuck people who hate on Swift for misogynistic reasons, but also fuck swifties who brush valid criticism off as misogyny.
And to this blatant whataboutism I can just say: humans are able to criticize more than one person. Yes, fuck Elon Musk, he is worse in uncountable more ways than her, but this fact doesn’t protect Taylor from also being criticized.
I’m not even a Swift fan, and yeah I get that she is ultimately still a billionaire. But she played on Friday in my home city of Melbourne, and that day she donated $100k to a local food bank system. I know that’s still a drop in the bucket for her, but that’s not chump change.
However, if you do some searching, there’s a stream of news stories of her donating large amount like that or more. The day before her first Melbourne concert, she donated $100k to the family of the woman killed at the super bowl parade. Two months ago she donated $1 million to a relief fund for tennessee tornado victims. Heaps more food bank donations.
Like, can we seriously just leave her the fuck alone? Musk is an alt-right piece of shit, she’s just a talented musician that actually works for a living. And yeah, I know she doesn’t work as much as some of the rest of us, but stadium touring is still brutal. Musk just sits on his arse all day tweeting and committing labour violations.
She’s also not the child of an emerald mine owner so there’s that too.
100k to a billionaire is no more than a tip. Billionaires are a symptom of an unjust system of wealth distribution, regardless of the person. Musk also happens to be a racist numbfuck, but they’re a dime a dozen. The problem is that he’s part of a digital feudalism and wields enormous power.
Yeah, like I already said in my comment, it’s a drop in the bucket for her. But she’s doing it over and over again. Twice this week she donated $100k. It adds up over time. Dolly Parton is worth $650 million, and she also donates significant sums of that to her book charity. They’re both trying reasonably hard to make the world suck less. Musk is actively creating more suffering. Can we not talk about them like they’re the same level of evil? What good does that bring?
Many rich people are “donating” to avoid paying taxes and it another way for marketing. You are the proof of that, you are defending and promoting her.
Billionaires like her are the reason we have poverty and charity associations
You are 100% correct that many billionaires do that. As cogman mentioned above, having a “charity” that you run yourself as a billionaire is absolutely a common tax scam. That’s not what she’s doing though. She’s actually spending the money.
Also in terms of marketing, like, are you serious? Her music speaks for itself to her fans, they don’t care about any of this. My words here aren’t going to influence someone to go listen to her music or buy a concert ticket. To believe that they could is simply ludicrous.
As a US citizen, she is only allowed to claim donations to charities registered in the US. The $100k she just dropped in Melbourne, Australia wouldn’t be eligible for example. Therefore it’s not free PR, she actually paid about $100k for it.
A lot of billionaires do donate sums like these without direct personal gain. They also have more complex tax optimization/scams going on. None of that means they are virtuous people, and neither is taylor swift. She’s just like any other billionaire.
Have you ever read Andrew Carnegie’s book The Gospel of Wealth? Even if Taylor hasn’t, someone close to her has. Carnegie and Rockefeller needed bodyguards to feel safe in public. All billionaires should feel the same. We forgot to call them what they are. Robber Barons.
It’s, frankly, more than most billionaires and 100 millionaires do.
Most billionaires are setting up fake charities as tax shelters so they can publicize “Elon musk gave money to the Elon musk charity for fueling billionaire private jets foundation”.
You can pretty much pick a billionaire and find that billionaire’s charity that does dog shit.
Except for Dolly Parton who apparently didn’t get the memo that she’s supposed to be scamming :D
More than most billionaires is a pathetically low bar to clear. Charities are less efficient than paying taxes to fund proper centralized systems but this way they get to hold on to the majority of their dragon hoard, not meaningfully address most of the cause they donate too, and launder their reputation to people like you that can’t see past the hollow optics.
to people like you that can’t see past the hollow optics.
Umm, ok, Like I agree with you that charities in general tend to be a bad way to solve public problems. But I’m also pointing out that charities rich people tend to contribute to are often even worse than ineffective for addressing public needs.
If people don’t notice how much more society hates women for doing the same things men get away with everyday, they simply haven’t been paying attention.
If they’re only just now having it pointed out to them, after participating in the latest hate campaign, they’re motivated not to understand because they don’t want to recognise their own behaviour as misogynistic.
Talking about how they “hate both” might be true for any one person, but that doesn’t change the wider trend.
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