Taylor Swift managed to drive record-breaking numbers to voter registration website Vote.org after urging her 232 million followers on Instagram to take action.
On Tuesday (19 September), hours after the pop star, 32, called on her US fanbase to register to vote in honour of National Voter Registration Day, Vote.org’s communication director, Nick Morrow, announced that “our site was averaging 13,000 users every 30 minutes”.
“Fun fact: after @taylorswift13 posted on Instagram today directing her followers to register to vote on @votedotorg, our site was averaging 13,0000 users every 30 minutes,” Morrow wrote on X/Twitter.
“13! Let’s just say her reputation for being a mastermind is very well-earned.”
Earlier that day, the “Anti-Hero” singer had posted to her Story, asking followers: “Are you registered to vote yet?
Well let’s be hoping she doesn’t turn weird like JK Rowling. It seems there’s something in the air that makes billionaires turn rather right wing
I’ve avoided saying things like fascist, nazi, bigot, because there’s been a history of JK Rowling litigating people who call her a fascist, transphobic, bitch and I don’t want to do that yet
I think a comment I saw recently makes this make sense.
A lot of people have told me as you age, you get more conservative. I have not noticed this happen, but I think an entire generation did. Boomers. As they aged they had so many advantages the entire generation acquired things. Things they don’t want to lose because they feel like they earned it. In some ways they did earn it (eg, pursued that promotion, bought that house after “a whole summer of working OT!”)… they just don’t recognize they started on third base and did not in fact hit a home run.
So if an entire generation can be as awful as they are, I think it must be a general glitch in human psychology. As long as you FEEL like you earned something, you will fight to protect it. I think that’s what happens to billionaires. And aging republicans. There will always be exceptions, but I think in general humans will just tend to be this way.
There has been research along those lines. If you give someone twice the starting money in Monopoly, they’ll still say they won due to skill.
Humans are ridiculous.