Speaker 1: Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and
Speaker 1: social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm
Speaker 1: Tim O'Brien. Before we get started, a note to you
Speaker 1: wonderful listeners. This will be Crash Course's final episode. Keeping
Speaker 1: the show afloat while juggling a million other things prove
Speaker 1: to be a challenge. I'm grateful you've tuned in, so
Speaker 1: back to it. Today's Crash Course Taylor Swift versus the World.
Speaker 1: This is hardly an original thought. Taylor Swift embodies a
Speaker 1: rare cultural presence and moment, and she's everywhere. She inhabits
Speaker 1: her presence amid an unusual amount of glare with an
Speaker 1: unusual amount of grace. But now, and this is what
Speaker 1: feels oddly fresh to me, a lot of weirdness has
Speaker 1: attached itself to her. She's encouraged voters to register without
Speaker 1: offering specifics about the twenty twenty four presidential election, but
Speaker 1: Fox and several of its commentators keep warning her to
Speaker 1: stay out of politics. Others in Fox's ranks say she's
Speaker 1: a military embed the federal government is using for psychological
Speaker 1: warfare against who and for what you might ask. In
Speaker 1: her romance with Kansas City Chief star Travis Kelcey it's fake.
Speaker 1: The same crowd says it's part of a different conspiracy,
Speaker 1: one crafted to get Joe Biden elected or boost football ratings.
Speaker 1: Loved simply can't be the reason they're together. I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know. Isn't Taylor Swift a singer? She's also
Speaker 1: a shrewd businesswoman, a conscientious manager of the people who
Speaker 1: work for and with her, responsive and responsible to her fans,
Speaker 1: and has kept her wits about her when everyone else
Speaker 1: is losing theirs. Joining me today to examine all of
Speaker 1: this is Emma Gray. Emma co writes a culture substack
Speaker 1: called rich Text, and she's the author of A Girl's
Speaker 1: Guide to Joining the Resistance. She's also a columnist with MSNBC.
Speaker 1: Greeting z Emma, and welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to be back to talk about all
Speaker 2: of this Maga meltdown surrounding Taylor Swift. What a delight.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, the last time you joined, you schooled me
Speaker 1: about the meaning of Barbie the movie, and we talked
Speaker 1: about all of the ins and outs of Barbie, and
Speaker 1: so when I wanted to get into this topic, I
Speaker 1: thought who will be my guide on this little journey.
Speaker 1: You automatically popped up in my mind.
Speaker 2: I'm honored.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: There's so many ways into a Taylor Swift discussion, but
Speaker 1: let's start oddly, perhaps with football. The Super Bowl was
Speaker 1: played last weekend. I'm not sure what the viewer tallies were,
Speaker 1: but last year one hundred and fifteen million people watched it.
Speaker 1: So it's one of these centerpiece events in American culture,
Speaker 1: for better or for worse. And this thought has emerged
Speaker 1: that this thirty four year old star is an intruder,
Speaker 1: and that she doesn't deserve the attention she gets when
Speaker 1: her boyfriend's football team plays, and that it distracts people
Speaker 1: from the game, and it distracts people, I guess, from
Speaker 1: the meaning of life, even though I think she's lending
Speaker 1: in disputable brand value to the NFL and the Kansas
Speaker 1: City Chiefs and her boyfriend. What do you make of
Speaker 1: this when you see this sort of miasma of weird
Speaker 1: observations about their romance and football come into our purview?
Speaker 2: It is such a rich tapestry to dig into, honestly,
Speaker 2: and this is something that I've been mulling over for
Speaker 2: the last couple months watching, as you said, the profound
Speaker 2: weirdness of right wing white men turning against the NFL
Speaker 2: and a white football player who is dating a white
Speaker 2: former country singer. And I think what we're seeing, in
Speaker 2: part is this profound discomfort with girls and women having
Speaker 2: any sort of centrality to culture. Like I think that
Speaker 2: there are a segment of conservative men who see football
Speaker 2: as their purview, as the place that they are king,
Speaker 2: and they are profoundly threatened by the fact that this
Speaker 2: woman is getting any attention in that venue that they
Speaker 2: perceived to be theirs, which first of all, is ridiculous
Speaker 2: on its face, because there have always been women football fans,
Speaker 2: so it has never been only a venue for men.
Speaker 2: But I think that there has been that cultural perception,
Speaker 2: and Taylor's presence and the fact that she is bringing
Speaker 2: more people to these football games feels like evidence that like,
Speaker 2: it's not theirs anymore. And I think that there is
Speaker 2: this desire to create a wider justification for why that's happening.
Speaker 2: And it can't just be that Taylor Swift is dating
Speaker 2: Travis Kelcey and wants to show up to support her
Speaker 2: boyfriend as he has showed up to her air tour
Speaker 2: and they want to have a cute little public romance
Speaker 2: that is mutually beneficial, probably both personally and professionally for
Speaker 2: both of them. It has to be that Joe Biden
Speaker 2: and the Pentagon are conspiring, you know, in some sort
Speaker 2: of deep state operation, right, And at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, I think it all comes back to the
Speaker 2: fact that there are a lot of men who are
Speaker 2: really uncomfortable and have a lot of anxiety about the
Speaker 2: giralification of popular culture.
Speaker 1: The same men, by the way, who are very content
Speaker 1: to look at rows of cheerleaders. Female cheerleaders stand on
Speaker 1: the field and dance and do other things, and they
Speaker 1: don't call it a distraction. They actually think of it
Speaker 1: as a fundamental part of the game. This is the
Speaker 1: same group of men, largely men who can't wait for
Speaker 1: a variety of bonkers ads that air during the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl and take time away from the game itself. This
Speaker 1: is the same group of men who watch and can't
Speaker 1: wait for halftime shows that often also feature female stars,
Speaker 1: and yet a woman in a red jacket cheering for
Speaker 1: her boyfriend in a skybox who on average, I think
Speaker 1: the New York Times did a breakdown. I think in
Speaker 1: most games that Taylor Swift has attended, the average amount
Speaker 1: of actual airtime she gets is in the neighborhood of
Speaker 1: twenty five seconds.
Speaker 2: Well it's too much, tim Okay, frankly, it's too much.
Speaker 1: And it's like just you know, bury your head in
Speaker 1: your nachos and look away from the screen, right, or
Speaker 1: shoot some beer on your buddy on the couch, not
Speaker 1: a bunch light.
Speaker 2: Very threatened by blud bud lights.
Speaker 1: Well that's bad. Bud Light's bad. But you know, the
Speaker 1: interesting like as a case study, so beyond these things
Speaker 1: that I think are obviously ridiculous and speak more to
Speaker 1: men's insecurity about their own identities and their openness to
Speaker 1: being in the presence of empowered and powerful women. That
Speaker 1: feels like really obvious to me as sort of ten
Speaker 1: pole things for men to consider here rather than Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: But there have always been political and social controversies that
Speaker 1: have wrapped themselves around football. Aaron Rodgers, at the time
Speaker 1: he was the Green Bay Packers quarterback, didn't want to
Speaker 1: get veaxed in the middle of a pandemic and the
Speaker 1: COVID lockdowns, And he knew he was making a statement.
Speaker 1: He himself was politicizing the sport. And then famously, when
Speaker 1: a number of different black NFL players took knees during
Speaker 1: the National Anthem to protest violence against blacks by the police,
Speaker 1: that was considered a no no. No one really felt
Speaker 1: that Aaron Rodgers should quiet down, but other forms of
Speaker 1: protests were deemed not part of the game, you know.
Speaker 1: And then in the kind of the back lot of
Speaker 1: the football industry, there's been a lot of misogyny. There's
Speaker 1: been problems with players assaulting women, sexism in the NFL offices.
Speaker 1: And so I think this is such an interesting tableat
Speaker 1: and then suddenly you have Taylor Swift table and she's
Speaker 1: become a pinata. Do you think that's just going to
Speaker 1: be a permanent feature of football discussions? Is its collision
Speaker 1: with the popular culture?
Speaker 2: I think so, And I think that it makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense to me. I think we have this
Speaker 2: fantasy in certain segments of American life that we can
Speaker 2: just take politics out of something, when politics is inherently
Speaker 2: embedded in everything in our lives, and certainly in football,
Speaker 2: which is seen as a fundamentally American sport which makes
Speaker 2: a ton of money for a ton of people, which
Speaker 2: creates celebrity which interacts with celebrity. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: a hotbed for political and cultural analysis and the way
Speaker 2: that they intersect with each other. And so I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: as you said, Taylor Swift is kind of just the
Speaker 2: latest iteration of this. And because she has become this
Speaker 2: I think stratospherically famous individual in a way that few
Speaker 2: people do. Her presence, there is just rife for commentary
Speaker 2: on both sides, for adoration from certain segments of the
Speaker 2: population and for vilification from other segments. And I think
Speaker 2: just a lot is projected onto her. And it is
Speaker 2: interesting to me the way that certain segments of the population,
Speaker 2: you know, for example, the right are very selective about
Speaker 2: their desire for celebrity to intrude into the NFL. As
Speaker 2: you said, Aaron Rodgers being anti vax that was great,
Speaker 2: But Colin Kaepernick, you've gone too far.
Speaker 1: Or the camera panning to Matthew McConaughey in the stands, well,
Speaker 1: that's Patriots alone. You know, like no one says, hey,
Speaker 1: you're distracting me from the game right now? Why is
Speaker 1: that movie star on my screen for a nanosecond.
Speaker 2: There is just also it's so distinctly embedded in our
Speaker 2: ideas of gender to consider a fully covered up woman
Speaker 2: who's merely there to be a distraction, Like it gives
Speaker 2: me shades of a very juvenile reading of girls at
Speaker 2: school can't show their shoulders because they will distract the boys,
Speaker 2: Like there is this fundamental kind of underestimation of men
Speaker 2: built into that, Like, sir, your cognitive skills are being
Speaker 2: strained by four seconds of a blonde lady in the stands,
Speaker 2: Like unpack that for a minute.
Speaker 1: Dropping f bombs sometimes too, by the way up there
Speaker 1: in the stands. You know. Another factor in this I
Speaker 1: think is very interesting is that the football player capital
Speaker 1: T capital F capital P occupies this place in American
Speaker 1: men's imaginations about what being masculine entails and living large
Speaker 1: in the world and playing a sport in which you're
Speaker 1: going up against other very big men and trying to
Speaker 1: beat them on the battlefield of football. You have someone
Speaker 1: who is a primo example of that specimen in Travis Kelsey,
Speaker 1: and he's very comfortable being with an in charge woman
Speaker 1: who makes much more money than he does and has
Speaker 1: much more celebrity traction than he does, and he's happy
Speaker 1: with that. And I sort of that is a challenge
Speaker 1: to men as well. Travis Kelcey in this combination, I
Speaker 1: think is also as threatening to you know, the male
Speaker 1: viewership as Taylor Swift is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think there is something that
Speaker 2: feels unsettling to some men to see this guy who
Speaker 2: in so many ways embodies the platonic ideal of American masculinity,
Speaker 2: and yet that is confounded to an extent by his relationship.
Speaker 2: And yeah, his comfort with being with someone who is
Speaker 2: more famous and you know, having a billion dollar tour.
Speaker 2: Travis Kelsey is about as famous as a football player
Speaker 2: can get, but he is not Taylor Swift. That is
Speaker 2: simply a different level. And yeah, I think that there
Speaker 2: are a lot of male fantasies, specifically white male fantasies,
Speaker 2: that are contained within the game of football, and any
Speaker 2: deviation from that feels threatening.
Speaker 1: If it's a deviation that doesn't encompass the already acceptable.
Speaker 1: So it's okay to have a male star on the
Speaker 1: camera but not a female star. It's okay to have
Speaker 1: female cheerleaders but not successful female musicians.
Speaker 2: Because they're not overshadowy, they're just objects for male entertainment.
Speaker 3: Tim see the thing?
Speaker 1: Oh, now I get it. See, that's why I needed
Speaker 1: you here today. You know. In a similar vein, there
Speaker 1: was this recent New York Times essay about Taylor Swift's
Speaker 1: sexual identity, and in a piece that I regarded as
Speaker 1: poorly put together and I don't like taking other journalists
Speaker 1: to task on the air, but it was an empirically
Speaker 1: dubious piece in terms of I think the goal of
Speaker 1: the piece was to say, Taylor Swift is a closeted
Speaker 1: gay woman and it would be healthy for her to
Speaker 1: come out of the closet because it would be empowering
Speaker 1: for other members of the gay community. That's fine, I
Speaker 1: think as a goal, But then I think, if you're
Speaker 1: going to prove your case, you really have to assemble
Speaker 1: the argument. And getting back to our theme of the
Speaker 1: weird conspiracy theories that attached themselves to Taylor Swift, I
Speaker 1: felt the writer of that particular piece was sort of
Speaker 1: finding coded meanings in the titles of albums or things
Speaker 1: that Taylor Swift had set on stage and sort of
Speaker 1: plucking cues out of somewhat thin air to make a
Speaker 1: case for her and for her own needs and her
Speaker 1: own argument. And again that feels thematically of a fit
Speaker 1: of why do these kinds of theories attach themselves to her?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that part of it is
Speaker 2: that she is someone who is known to include Easter
Speaker 2: eggs in her lyrics and her videos. She plays with
Speaker 2: that that is part of the fun. In my understanding
Speaker 2: of being a hardcore swiftye is to try to glean
Speaker 2: greater understanding about this artist that you admire through all
Speaker 2: of these things. And I feel like what that piece
Speaker 2: misunderstood is that there is a difference between speculating about
Speaker 2: Taylor's sexuality in the New York Times versus being on
Speaker 2: TikTok as a fan and allowing yourself a queer reading
Speaker 2: of her persona or her lyrics like that seems fun
Speaker 2: and healthy and fair and the other.
Speaker 1: There's one of the powerful things music does exactly right,
Speaker 1: exactly It allows people to feel seen right way right.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure for her some of that is intentional,
Speaker 2: But to put it in an op ed in the
Speaker 2: New York Times, to me said, we as a public
Speaker 2: are entitled to you, Taylor Swift, disclosing every bit of
Speaker 2: your sexual identity to us. And I don't think that's
Speaker 2: something that we can ask of our celebrities, and.
Speaker 1: In fact, you owe us that right. You not only
Speaker 1: should do this, but you owe it to society because
Speaker 1: with fame comes power, and with power comes responsibility. Therefore,
Speaker 1: out yourself, right out yourself. Damn it. Let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break and hear from a sponsor and that I
Speaker 1: want to come back with the other odd intersection Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift and her intersection with American politics. After this break,
Speaker 1: I'm back with emmcgray, who's helping me sort out some
Speaker 1: of the madness surrounding Taylor Swift. Emma, I'm going to
Speaker 1: quote one of the more lunar members of the Fox
Speaker 1: talk show The Five, Jeanine Piro, on a recent episode,
Speaker 1: speaking of Taylor Swift, she said, why would someone as
Speaker 1: popular as she is alienate your fans, the Swifties. So
Speaker 1: don't get involved. Don't get involved in politics. We don't
Speaker 1: want to see you there. So others in MAGA media
Speaker 1: have said similar things about Again, you know, in the
Speaker 1: prior section we're talking about her intrusion onto the American
Speaker 1: pastime of football. This is now warning her that she
Speaker 1: shouldn't intrude on the civic virtue of participatory politics. What
Speaker 1: do you make of that.
Speaker 2: It really is giving strong shades of shut up and
Speaker 2: singing to the Dixie Chicks after they made a statement
Speaker 2: about the Iraq War, Like, I think that there is
Speaker 2: this desire, certainly on the right, to look at cultural
Speaker 2: figures who are inconvenient for their narratives and say, stay
Speaker 2: in your lane. But Donald Trump is a celebrity. He
Speaker 2: was a celebrity before he was elected president. Ronald Reagan
Speaker 2: was right, like, this is the party that has actively
Speaker 2: elected presidents who are boosted by their celebrity. And so
Speaker 2: again we're seeing that very selective feeling about celebrity. If
Speaker 2: you are going to disagree with the maga politics, you
Speaker 2: need to shut up. You need to stay in your land.
Speaker 2: Don't go to football games, don't ask people to vote,
Speaker 2: don't endorse anyone, don't state to political opinion. But if
Speaker 2: you are going to boost the conspiracy theory that COVID
Speaker 2: vaccines are evil, then great, use that platform. We need you.
Speaker 1: You know, you just got me thinking about a very
Speaker 1: interesting thing that I hadn't been thinking about before we
Speaker 1: been talking, which is what kind of celebrity has allowed
Speaker 1: to intersect with politics and what kind isn't. And I'm
Speaker 1: thinking back to the twenty sixteen presidential election, and I
Speaker 1: was in a green room at NBC and I was
Speaker 1: speaking with a political consultant about what the chances of
Speaker 1: Trump winning the election were and I was dubious, totally wrong,
Speaker 1: And he said, you really can't underestimate the power of celebrity.
Speaker 1: He said, if you looked at the Arnold Schwarzenegger candidacy
Speaker 1: for governor in California and Jesse Ventura ex wrestlers run
Speaker 1: for the governorship in Minnesota. In both of those races,
Speaker 1: he said, towards the very end of the election, both
Speaker 1: of them enjoyed these huge spikes in voter attention, voter allegiance,
Speaker 1: and then raw voting because of their celebrity. And he said,
Speaker 1: you know that could just accrue to Donald Trump in
Speaker 1: this election too. And of course the maga wright knows
Speaker 1: it's one of his secret powers now and Fox knows
Speaker 1: that about him. And I think when they see it
Speaker 1: in others, it's come out in Fox's opposition to more
Speaker 1: charismatic democratic politicians. They identify them early. I think of
Speaker 1: AOC as Bill example of that. Within minutes of being elected,
Speaker 1: she became kind of a target for beware you know
Speaker 1: she's part of the woke left, progressive la la la
Speaker 1: la la, and I think that's what's insenting this kind
Speaker 1: of fear of Taylor Swift's entry into the political landscape.
Speaker 2: That's such a good point, that's such a good way
Speaker 2: to put it. And I think that's exactly right because
Speaker 2: you look at, for example, something that really set off
Speaker 2: the MAGA right, which is that Taylor Swift encouraged her
Speaker 2: fans on Instagram to register to vote. She did not
Speaker 2: say registered to vote as a Democrat. She simply said
Speaker 2: registered to vote, and that was deeply threatening to segments
Speaker 2: of the right. And what I think that tells us
Speaker 2: a couple of things. One that the Republican Party is
Speaker 2: deeply invested in as few people participating in our political
Speaker 2: system as possible. And second that, yeah, that they perceive
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift's celebrity and platform to be a fundamental threat
Speaker 2: to their political ends. And I think that, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: exactly that's exactly it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up that Instagram post because there's
Speaker 1: interesting data to be had around that. She doesn't have
Speaker 1: just any old Instagram platform. She has nearly two hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty million followers on Instagram. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: mind boggling number, and after she encouraged people to register
Speaker 1: vote dot Org at the time said I think within
Speaker 1: a relatively short period of time, thirty five thousand people
Speaker 1: registered to vote, you know, in response to her entreaties, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, has always been in every history class
Speaker 1: anyone takes, and in any of the mythology or literature
Speaker 1: surrounding the American journey and the American experiences, that voting
Speaker 1: is for everyone. Everyone should register. It's good civic duty
Speaker 1: to do so. It's not about partisanship or ideology. It's
Speaker 1: just about participating in the life of your country. And
Speaker 1: this woman suggests, yeah, everybody should do that, and Maga
Speaker 1: world freaks out exactly, you know, I think, beyond her
Speaker 1: celebrity though they know, she's also has positioned herself publicly
Speaker 1: around certain issues. In twenty eighteen, she posted something to
Speaker 1: social media that I want to quote at length because
Speaker 1: I think it shows where her head is at and
Speaker 1: what she's willing to do with her celebrity. She said,
Speaker 1: I have and always will cast my vote based on
Speaker 1: which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights.
Speaker 1: I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe
Speaker 1: in the fight for LGBTQ rights and that any form
Speaker 1: of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender is wrong.
Speaker 1: I believe that the systemic racism we still see in
Speaker 1: this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening, and prevalent.
Speaker 1: It's very clear where she stands. She's got a lot
Speaker 1: of courage, she's articulate, and there's probably in what I
Speaker 1: just read at least a dozen words that would make
Speaker 1: Maga lands head explode. Yes, she had to expect some
Speaker 1: of this to come at her. How do you think
Speaker 1: she's comported herself amid all these things that cling to her.
Speaker 2: I think she's handled it remarkably well. And you know,
Speaker 2: she has a great team surrounding her, who I think
Speaker 2: probably I'm assuming that probably helps kind of insulate from
Speaker 2: some of it. But we know from everything that she's
Speaker 2: said and her documentary like that her deciding to for
Speaker 2: the first time be publicly political was not a decision
Speaker 2: taken lightly, and it was certainly something that a lot
Speaker 2: of people around her thought she shouldn't do. And early
Speaker 2: in her career there were a lot of questions swirling
Speaker 2: around her. You know, this white blonde woman who comes
Speaker 2: from the country world. Is she conservative? Is she getting
Speaker 2: all of these liberal fans to come and support her?
Speaker 2: And she actually is opposed to the human rights that
Speaker 2: feel core to a lot of her fan base. And
Speaker 2: she answered the question with this statement, and you know,
Speaker 2: with her subsequent endorsement of Biden in twenty twenty. And
Speaker 2: I think that, yeah, as you said, she has a
Speaker 2: huge platform, and she has been able to maintain and
Speaker 2: grow her celebrity in the wake of being open about
Speaker 2: her political stances. And I think that that is probably
Speaker 2: also what makes segments of the right very scared of her.
Speaker 2: She has not crumbled, right, She has not received the
Speaker 2: backlash that has affected her bottom line in the way that,
Speaker 2: for example, the Dixie Chicks did.
Speaker 1: That is completely true, and I think we're going to
Speaker 1: get it in the back end of the show. We'll
Speaker 1: get into the kind of financial power and independence she's
Speaker 1: established for herself that other artists haven't enjoyed when they've
Speaker 1: spoken out. When you mentioned before about she's also scaring
Speaker 1: the right. One of my favorite recent examples of the
Speaker 1: kind of imaginative and conspiratorial lengths her critics will go
Speaker 1: to to sort of build up. Pair noy about her
Speaker 1: was when when Jesse Waters, another Fox bro, recently speculated
Speaker 1: that she's a government plant waging a form of psychological
Speaker 1: warfare and that her Era's concert tour. I'm sorry, it's
Speaker 1: so hard for me to even just state this without laughing,
Speaker 1: because it's sort of fun and funny, but it's like,
Speaker 1: don't people have better things to do? Anyway? He warned
Speaker 1: that her Era's concert tour was a phenomenon because the
Speaker 1: Defense Department was backing it. Have you found evid evidence
Speaker 1: in your own reporting that the Defense Department is using
Speaker 1: her as an embed to wage psychological warfare on the
Speaker 1: American people? And if so, tell us now, Emma, I
Speaker 1: have not.
Speaker 2: It just truly cracks me up, this idea that that
Speaker 2: would be the more likely explanation than just that like
Speaker 2: a lot of women and girls are interested to see
Speaker 2: an artist reflect their emotional experiences, Like couldn't be that
Speaker 2: has to be like the Department of Defense. It's just
Speaker 2: it's beyond wakado. And yet it is kind of chilling
Speaker 2: that there are a lot of people who are so
Speaker 2: invested in these ideas that they are willing to buy
Speaker 2: into them and take them. Seriously. I keep thinking about
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk going on a rant about her in which
Speaker 2: he said all the swifties want is a swift abortion.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, yeah, Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2: Okay again there is just it's like these men and
Speaker 2: some of these women cannot grasp a world in which
Speaker 2: young people might just want to see their lived experiences
Speaker 2: reflected back at them or want to participate in the
Speaker 2: government of the country that they live in. Like that
Speaker 2: is too hard to believe. So it has to be
Speaker 2: a conspiracy. It can't just be that these ideas or
Speaker 2: this person is genuinely popular.
Speaker 1: And confident can destructive. Policy oriented political parties don't freak
Speaker 1: out about talented and influential pop stars, but cults do, yes.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the other collisions you're seeing
Speaker 1: here is that I think the Republican Party, particularly the
Speaker 1: MAGA wing, I think there's a lot of traditional conservatives
Speaker 1: who are policy oriented, think the best for the country,
Speaker 1: want to have public dialogues about the economy in the future.
Speaker 1: But that's certainly not where the Maga wing of the
Speaker 1: party rights. And they've actually gotten their strongest traction as
Speaker 1: a cultural force, not a policy force, but to appeal
Speaker 1: to people's emotions, to their fears, to a variety of
Speaker 1: other desires, which, of course artists always explore. You know,
Speaker 1: every great artist is exploring people's emotional landscape and their needs.
Speaker 1: And so that's another reason why at this particular point
Speaker 1: in time, I think an influential pop star is threatening
Speaker 1: to a party that has tethered its future to culture,
Speaker 1: war and emotion.
Speaker 2: That's such a good point. Yeah, Maga really just goes
Speaker 2: on vibes. They're worried. They're worried about the vibe shift
Speaker 2: not in their favor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bad political vibes. On that note, I'm going to
Speaker 1: take another quick break to hear from a sponsor, and
Speaker 1: then we'll come back and we will stop talking about emotion,
Speaker 1: stop talking about conspiracies, and we will talk about the money.
Speaker 1: I'm back in having a great conversation with the great
Speaker 1: Emma Gray about the great Taylor Swift. Everyone's great, everyone's great. Today,
Speaker 1: I want to point out two things about Taylor Swift's
Speaker 1: Eras tour last year. First, I became a hero in
Speaker 1: my household by getting two tickets for my wife. And second,
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift became a billionaire through the Era's tour. By
Speaker 1: the way, my pal and partner in crime here Anamazerakus,
Speaker 1: has been to three Taylor Swift concerts. What is Taylor
Speaker 1: Me to you, Anna?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that she's incredibly talented, but I
Speaker 3: also think, as Emma has brought up in this conversation,
Speaker 3: she is a strong independent woman who has built an
Speaker 3: incredibly strong business and that's threatening to a lot of people.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of interesting to watch how she has
Speaker 3: handled that and gone through the roller coaster of it
Speaker 3: from you know, really wanting people's approval to then also
Speaker 3: having like a song called shake It Off where she's like, whatever,
Speaker 3: I'm just going to live my life now. She keeps
Speaker 3: going through that.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, it's interesting, and it's a learning experience. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that's interesting about what's
Speaker 1: given her traction and sort of fortitude amidst all this
Speaker 1: is that she's a great business woman. That's just a
Speaker 1: really practical day in and day out level. There are
Speaker 1: so many highlights to talk about, you know. She just
Speaker 1: took her fourth award for Album of the Year at
Speaker 1: the Grammy. She's the first artist to ever do that.
Speaker 1: She's the highest grossing female touring act, the most streamed
Speaker 1: woman on Spotify and Apple Music, the first person to
Speaker 1: become a billionaire with a fortune primarily derived from music,
Speaker 1: and she's sold two hundred million records, and on and
Speaker 1: on and on. What do you make of her as
Speaker 1: a business force in that context?
Speaker 2: Nowah, I mean, I'm impressed. It's very impressive to be
Speaker 2: a creative who is able to build that like that
Speaker 2: is just using a whole different brain. And you have
Speaker 2: to be very savvy in order to build a brand
Speaker 2: that sustains that long that you are tapping and growing
Speaker 2: into this audience who you are so endeared to that
Speaker 2: they will shell out a lot of money to see
Speaker 2: The Era's Tour. I have friends who have seen like
Speaker 2: three different stops on The Era's tour because it is
Speaker 2: just a thrill every single time. And so she is
Speaker 2: both a savvy businesswoman and also creating a product that
Speaker 2: people want to come back for, which I think is
Speaker 2: key to having a sustainable business when it comes to
Speaker 2: music or any creative work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to quote Billboard Magazine here Taylor Swift's
Speaker 1: quote seismic impact on the music industry over the past
Speaker 1: seventeen years since her debut isn't limited to her unparalleled
Speaker 1: commercial success, but also encompasses her influence on everything from artists'
Speaker 1: rights to smashing the traditional album release model to changing
Speaker 1: the conversation about songwrights and ownership. You know. Famously, she
Speaker 1: pulled her catalog from Spotify for three years twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: to twenty seventeen in order to get a fair financial
Speaker 1: deal from that platform. She fought Apple for better royalty payments.
Speaker 1: But this always seemed like the boss moved to me.
Speaker 1: After her master recordings for her first six albums and
Speaker 1: her former label were sold to another company in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: she re recorded the songs that were part of the
Speaker 1: sale so she could regain ownership of her own masters.
Speaker 1: And I just thought, as well, like that was it's
Speaker 1: so in charge and business savvy, and I thought it
Speaker 1: was really impressive.
Speaker 2: It's so impressive. The tailor's version universe of albums is incredible.
Speaker 2: It's also allowed her to revisit material and introduce newer
Speaker 2: fans to that back catalog to bring I think more
Speaker 2: of her adult sensibility into that music. And yeah, I
Speaker 2: think she is showcasing a model for artists and creatives
Speaker 2: that says you deserve to own your work, you do
Speaker 2: not have to be a slave to these traditional gatekeepers.
Speaker 2: And I think that it puts this question into the ether,
Speaker 2: which is, maybe these systems are broken and maybe we
Speaker 2: should all be revisiting them. And she has the financial
Speaker 2: and cultural power to make a move as an individual
Speaker 2: and change a whole system, which virtually no one else,
Speaker 2: very few other people have that power.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't stop there. She leverages very shrewdly her
Speaker 1: own image and brand on social media, around album drops,
Speaker 1: around who she is, what her life entails, and then
Speaker 1: she has a whole merch line attached to all this clothing,
Speaker 1: phone cases, jewelry, et cetera, et cetera. I guess I
Speaker 1: know the answer is, but does it surprise you that
Speaker 1: she's also able to excel in all of these different facets?
Speaker 1: And what do you think explains it?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I don't exactly know what explains it, but
Speaker 2: I am not surprised, just in the sense that she's
Speaker 2: been in this business for a long time. She has
Speaker 2: stayed quite true to herself and her own evolution, and
Speaker 2: I think she has been an eager learner throughout all
Speaker 2: of it, and obviously we can't pretend that it's just
Speaker 2: her like she has found collaborators who understand her and
Speaker 2: want to work with her to build out this brand.
Speaker 2: I am like less familiar admittedly with some of her
Speaker 2: business practices, but as an observer and admirer of her,
Speaker 2: I find it all to be pretty impressive. And also
Speaker 2: I wonder how shocked we would be by it if
Speaker 2: she wasn't an artist, like in a pretty woman's.
Speaker 1: Body, right, you know. I also think that just artists
Speaker 1: historically have not been good negotiators for their own financial wellbeing.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, a totally different skill set. So it
Speaker 2: is very impressive in that sense.
Speaker 1: And then she uses it all responsibly and isn't going
Speaker 1: crazy and is hanging in there. Let me ask you
Speaker 1: one last question, you know, and watching the arc of
Speaker 1: Taylor's journey, and maybe specifically over the last several months,
Speaker 1: with the conspiracy theories floating around her, what have you
Speaker 1: learned about what she represents in the world that you
Speaker 1: didn't know before this most recent installment of Taylor Mania.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. I think I learned that a
Speaker 2: lot of people that I assumed and wouldn't be paying
Speaker 2: attention to Taylor Swift really are like. That is what
Speaker 2: the MAGA backlash to an extent has taught me. That
Speaker 2: she lives rent free in a lot of people's heads,
Speaker 2: and a woman who is operating in all of these
Speaker 2: different realms and has what seems to be total control
Speaker 2: and a grasp on her own platform and power is
Speaker 2: very scary to a lot of people. And that's certainly
Speaker 2: not to lift Taylor up as some perfect figure who
Speaker 2: is not deserving ever of criticism. I don't think that
Speaker 2: that's true, but I do think that for certain segments
Speaker 2: of the culture, a lot of derangement is projected onto her,
Speaker 2: and she is kind of treated as this blank space
Speaker 2: where maga fantasies and dreams and fears can be played
Speaker 2: out upon TDS.
Speaker 1: Taylor Derangement syndrome coin new We've got a new term here.
Speaker 1: We've run out of time. Emma, I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: coming on today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Emma Gray is the co host of a podcast that
Speaker 1: recaps dating reality shows, Love to See It, co writes
Speaker 1: a culture substact called rich Text, and is the author
Speaker 1: of A Girl's Guide to joining the Resistance. She's also
Speaker 1: a columnist with MSNBC and you can find her on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Emma Lady Rose. Here at Crash Course, we
Speaker 1: believed the collisions can be messy, impressive, challenging, surprising, and
Speaker 1: always instructive. But all good things must come to an end,
Speaker 1: so we're bringing down the curtain on Crash Course. This episode,
Speaker 1: like all of our episodes, was produced by the indispensable
Speaker 1: and wildly talented Anna Masarakus. She has been a stellar
Speaker 1: collaborator and I will miss co creating this show with her.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer has been Magnus Hendrickson, and we've had
Speaker 1: editing help from Sagebauman, Jeff Grocot, Mike Nizza, and Christine
Speaker 1: Vanden Bilar. Blake Maples has done all of our sound engineering,
Speaker 1: and he's capable of doing superhero things with sound. Our original
Speaker 1: theme song was composed by Luis Garra and I'm Tim O'Brien.
Speaker 1: Thanks for hanging out with Crash Course.