By the time you read this, the Super Bowl will be history but as I write we don’t know the outcome and all the conspiracy theorists are lining up on the Kansas City Chiefs’ political views. And these days, where the conspiracy theorists go, there goes the media. And they take voters’ brains with them. As a Missourian, I must defend the Chiefs.
The current conspiracy (subject to change at any minute, of course) is that Taylor Swift, the enormously popular female singer-songwriter pop star and girlfriend of the Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce, is going to use her relationship to swing the Presidential election to Joe Biden. The theory is that football fans are mostly MAGAs following Trump, the reality TV star. Give them a new star, say the theorists and they will be moved to the Biden camp. And there’s a subset of this theory that says the whole Travis/Taylor/Biden thing is managed by the Pentagon.
If you’ve watched a Chiefs’ game this year—and I’m not saying you should but, as a Missourian, I’m obligated—you’ve seen the camera swing from a brilliant move by Travis up to Taylor’s glassed-in box where she’s jumping up and down and hugging someone, probably Kylie Kelce, married to Travis’ brother, who plays for the Philadelphia Eagles.
If you’ve listened to pop radio, TV or online sources—and I’m not saying you should—you know that Taylor has the right elements to start her own genre of music. Female, breathy, pushing the envelope on what’s clean enough language to get on mass media and edgy enough to attract rebellious youngsters. In fact, it can be argued that she already has her own genre. Like other genre-starters — think of pioneers in rock, hip hop, punk, New Wave or think “Elvis” — she has enough fresh sexiness to drive the old generation nuts and make kids spend their money. Her “Eras” tour, with tickets averaging $238, is the first ever tour to make more than $1 billion.
The MAGA fantasy is that Taylor Swift could throw the election to Biden with just a few words to her fans. The fantasy has some roots in reality. Swift has tons of Instagram followers — like 300 million — and last September she urged them to register to vote. In response, Vote.org had the biggest surge of its time. She lets her followers know that she’s a voter and patriot with statements like, “We have the opportunity to choose those who will represent us for the next four years.” In social media talk, her comments “go viral.”
At this point, I should put in a sentence that says I’m neither football fan nor Swiftie. I think football encourages predatory behavior that I abhor and I think that any time we give our brains to an icon—any icon—we shut off the critical thinking that should always be active.
However, “Swifties” abound. David Brooks, who calls himself a conservative commentator, can quote Taylor Swift lyrics by heart. He keeps up with her extraordinary output of new albums every six months or so and calls himself an “aging fanboy” with “maturity interruptus.” Donna Brazile, who served twice as acting Chair of the Democratic National Committee admits to becoming a Swiftie, but not until the album “Midnights” came out, specifically the cut called “Karma.” So, there ya go: Nuance in the Swiftie world. I was going to quote “Karma” here but you can look it up on your Google machine.
But what social media giveth, social media taketh away, and Taylor’s enormous popularity has been balanced by evildoers with Artificial Intelligence on their sides—or at least on their computers. Pornographic fake images have been entered on X, a social media platform formerly known as Twitter. It would be easy to change something like Taylor’s “We have an opportunity …” to “We don’t have an opportunity …” which might make kids even more cynical with the idea that they shouldn’t bother voting.
So don’t look for any big Biden push from Taylor but, whatever happens, the Taylor Swift AI controversy shines a light on some current election dilemmas. The future of AI and the media is only one looming technology fueling cynicism about information. Cynicism about democracy.
This is not to say that the media has ever been bias-free. From the Civil War to the 1980s newspapers with “Democrat” in their name existed in many cities. In St. Louis, the Missouri Gazette and Louisiana Advertiser changed its name to Missouri Republican and then to Missouri Republic and eventually aligned with the Democrats, then went out of business.
So while we expect newspapers and TV channels to report from above the fray, that’s never happened and the sports world and entertainment can’t be expected to be any different.
Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2024
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