Decorating your front lawn for Halloween in an election year.

I laughed but somebody else might be truly horrified (and by what, exactly?):

"Vote preferences haven't moved meaningfully.... Each is within a percentage point of its pre-debate level in ABC/Ipsos polling."

I'm reading "Harris seen as debate winner while maintaining slight lead over Trump: POLL/Taylor Swift's endorsement of Harris shows little impact, the poll found" (ABC News).

ADDED: ABC has Harris at 51% and Trump at 47%. In its previous poll, at the end of August, Harris had 50% and Trump had 46%. They remained exactly the same distance apart in percentage points — 4. That's less obvious when you say "Each is within a percentage point of its pre-debate level."

"A campaign has been constructed around a mood, rather than the other way around. The mood is Obamacore..."

"... the outburst of brightness and positivity that took over pop culture upon the election of our first Black president in 2008, and that continued until the wheels fell off eight years later. This was the age of Glee, Taylor Swift’s 1989, and Hamilton, seemingly disparate art born out of the same impulse: the feeling of a new dawn, a generational shift, a national redemption.... ... Obamacore positioned itself as sensitive, non-threatening, and relatable. It was Aziz Ansari writing a book on modern dating alongside a Berkeley-trained sociologist, porn star James Deen talking about bacon, Louis C.K. playing a cop on Parks and Recreation.... The fandom that had sprung up around Obama’s presidential campaign expanded to embrace New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and later, Hillary Clinton. For a moment, bodies as hidebound as the Supreme Court and the papacy looked as if they might be rehabbed into vehicles for social justice.... This summer’s sudden reappearance of hope and positivity has spurred split reactions. Do you embrace your inner cringe, or try to tamp it down?... The optimistic case is that, against all odds, we seem to have heeded the lessons of Obamacore. Generation Z is willingly climbing the coconut tree."

Writes Nate Jones, in "That Feeling You Recognize? Obamacore. The 2008 election sparked a surge of positivity across pop culture. Now hindsight (and cringe) is setting in" (NY Magazine).

See also "100 Pieces of Pop Culture That Defined Obamacore/You know them when you see them — whether they were genius or, well, not," by Nate Jones (in NY Magazine). Just to select one:

What did Trump do wrong lately that's getting the most attention right now on X?

He said that Taylor Swift is beautiful — and he repeated it too many times and with a weird intensity:

Trump gets weird talking about Taylor Swift and how beautiful he thinks she is.

But this is way less weird and creepy than when he talks about his own daughter.

At least he doesn’t say he wants to fuck Taylor Swift.

pic.twitter.com/PRp1A9lgaL

— Peter Henlein (@SwissWatchGuy) June 27, 2024

Collection of commentary, here, at X.

The pause before the last "beautiful" is — essence of creepiness? — Woody-Allen-like.

American/British royalty. Ours is better, right?

Happy Bday M8! London shows are off to a splendid start 🇬🇧🇺🇸🤝 @KensingtonRoyal pic.twitter.com/VlD6V0PiEL

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) June 22, 2024

"I think she’s beautiful — very beautiful! I find her very beautiful. I think she’s liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented. I think she’s very beautiful, actually — unusually beautiful!"

Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Donald Trump Calls Taylor Swift ‘Unusually Beautiful’ but ‘Liberal’ in New ‘Apprentice’ Book" (Variety).

Also from the book, he says, "She is liberal, or is that just an act? She’s legitimately liberal? It’s not an act? It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal." By that time, Swift had transitioned to being a pop star. With pop stars, it would be surprising if they can be successful without being liberal... or just acting liberal. 

"Lola DeAscentiis, a sophomore, zeroed in on the song 'But Daddy I Love Him,' comparing it to the Sylvia Plath poem 'Daddy.'"

"She plans to explore the link in her final paper. 'I hesitate to say that the song was anywhere near the genius of Sylvia Plath — no offense to Taylor Swift — but I can definitely see some similarities in the themes, like sadness, depression and mental health,' Ms. DeAscentiis, 20, said.... 'The way that Taylor overlays her relationship with the significant other that she’s talking about in the song with the relationship that she has with her father — I think that was very Plath,' she added."

I'm reading the NYT article "Harvard’s Taylor Swift Scholars Have Thoughts on 'Tortured Poets'/The students taking Harvard University’s class on the singer are studying up. Their final papers are due at the end of the month."

In the Harvard undergrad course called "Taylor Swift and Her World" student compare Taylor  Swift song lyrics to the work of poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

The NYT article "Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and a MAGA Meltdown" is a tad disingenuous.

The politics writer, Jonathan Weisman, informs us that Taylor Swift "is driving the movement behind Donald Trump bonkers" and then tries to explain why.

Just 3 days ago, I was blogging about a NYT article that went on and on about how fervently Biden supporters hoped for a Taylor Swift endorsement. I thought it was embarrassing and pathetic that the Biden people were resorting to stirring up hope for their failing candidate by touting the prospect of a pop star endorsement.

But now, here's an article about how Trump supporters are getting out in front of the potential endorsement with an effort that seems fine-tuned to serve either of 2 entirely rational goals: 1. Persuade Taylor Swift to withhold her endorsement, or 2. Minimize the value of any endorsement.

If the endorsement is as valuable as the NYT portrayed it in the article on January 29th — "Inside Biden’s Anti-Trump Battle Plan (and Where Taylor Swift Fits In)" — then there's nothing "bonkers" about the Trump preemptive strike.

I'd be inclined to advise Swift to stay out of politics. I'd quote Bob Dylan: "I think politics is an instrument of the Devil. Just that clear. I think politics is what kills; it doesn’t bring anything alive. Politics is corrupt; I mean, anybody knows that." You're an artist. Preserve your artist power. Don't squander it.

But there must be those much closer to her who are saying that another Trump presidency will destroy the world, and she could, perhaps, simply by saying one sentence, push Biden to victory. How can you not say that one sentence? How can you hold yourself aloof when you have the power to save us and all the world is crying out for you to say that one line?!

"After months of languid buildup in which he held only a single public campaign event, Mr. Biden has thrown a series of rallies across battleground states, warning that democracy itself is at stake in 2024."

"He sent two of his most trusted White House operatives to take the helm of his re-election campaign in Wilmington, Del., after Mr. Trump seized control of the Republican primary race more rapidly than Mr. Biden’s advisers had initially expected. And other Biden aides are drafting wish lists of potential surrogates, including elected officials, social media influencers and the endorsement of their wildest dreams: the global superstar Taylor Swift."

It took 4 New York Times reporters — Reid J. Epstein, Lisa Lerer, Katie Glueck and Katie Rogers — to come up with that — "Inside Biden’s Anti-Trump Battle Plan (and Where Taylor Swift Fits In)/Watching Donald Trump ascend, the newly energized Biden campaign is aiming to make the general election all about him. It’s also hoping for some big endorsements."

What insipid puffery! Biden has not done enough. He never had to justify his death grip on the Democratic nomination, and it's outrageous that the country is left with the Trump-or-Biden choice once again. But 4 New York Times reporters toss out the name Taylor Swift as a sop. Disgusting!

But it's not as though the 4 reporters generated the Taylor Swift plan themselves:

The chatter around Ms. Swift and the potential of reaching her 279 million Instagram followers reached such intensity that the Biden team urged applicants in a job posting for a social media position not to describe their Taylor Swift strategy — the campaign had enough suggestions already.

I guess all the job applicants were saying here's my brilliant idea: Get Taylor Swift to endorse him.

"One image shared by a user on X, formerly Twitter, was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended on Thursday."

"X suspended several accounts that posted the faked images of Ms. Swift, but the images were shared on other social media platforms and continued to spread despite those companies’ efforts to remove them.... Researchers now fear that deepfakes are becoming a powerful disinformation force, enabling everyday internet users to create nonconsensual nude images or embarrassing portrayals of political candidates."

From "Explicit Deepfake Images of Taylor Swift Elude Safeguards and Swamp Social Media/Fans of the star and lawmakers condemned the images, probably generated by artificial intelligence, after they were shared with millions of social media users" (NYT).

Combining a photo of the head of a famous person with a photo of someone else's body is an old trick. I remember when Jon Stewart did it to the Supreme Court Justices in his book "America (The Book)." From 2004:

"The New York Times is under fire for publishing a piece speculating on Taylor Swift’s sexuality."

"In a 5,000-word opinion piece titled Look What We Made Taylor Swift Do, editor Anna Marks listed references to the LGBTQ+ community overt or perceived in Swift’s music and theorized that the singer was sending coded messages that she was secretly a member of the community.... 'This was the least defensible op-ed I can remember ever seeing the NYT run, made all the worst by the fact that it was written by a staffer, who specializes in these speculations,' Chris Wilman, the chief music critic at Variety, wrote on Twitter. (In 2022, Marks wrote a guest op-ed essay for the Times speculating on Harry Styles’s sexuality, as well.)... Marks argued that since early in her career, Swift has been trying to secretly signal that she identifies as queer.... 'Every time an artist signals queerness and that transmission falls on deaf ears, that signal dies. Recognizing the possibility of queerness – while being conscious of the difference between possibility and certainty – keeps that signal alive.'"

Writes Adrian Horton, in The Guardian.

I clicked over to read the Marks essay. It's really long. Excerpt:

"At one point in his show, he said the real divide in the country was not between rich and poor, Democratic or Republican, but between 'the insane' and 'the insufferable.'"

"The insane include the people who stormed the capitol. He calls them nuts, before adding: 'but fun.' Then he grew more animated describing the insufferable by their 'NPR tote-bag energy' and 'hall monitor' tendencies.... Minhaj... repositions him[self] less as a righteous political comic than a more self-questioning, personal comic, a move he had already begun to make; this scandal may have accelerated the shift...."

Writes Jason Zinoman, in "Was a Scandal the Best Thing to Happen to Hasan Minhaj? At the Beacon, the comic took a different tack after posting a video rebutting a New Yorker article on fabrications in his work. The crowd went wild" (NYT).

Zinoman likes that Minaj isn't "playing the victim," like "seemingly everyone" these days, including Elon Musk and Taylor Swift. And Zinoman, in a sidetrack, praises the filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli, and gives a tip about a new movie I might want to see:

They snubbed Oprah and invented a new category to lure in Taylor Swift.

I'm reading "Golden Globes 2024 Nominations: ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ in Front/'Barbie' led the nominations with nine, followed by 'Oppenheimer' with eight. In the television categories, 'Succession' had the most with nine" (NYT).

In one obvious snub, “The Color Purple,” based on the Broadway version of the story and backed by Oprah Winfrey, was left out of the best film, musical or comedy category. In a surprise, voters found a way to invite Taylor Swift to the ceremony, nominating her “Eras Tour” concert film in a new category for blockbusters....

"If you’re skeptical, consider... How many times did you see a photo of her while scrolling on your phone?... Did you double-tap an Instagram post..."

"... or laugh at a tweet, or click on a headline about her? Did you find yourself humming 'Cruel Summer' while waiting in line at the grocery store? Did a friend confess that they watched clips of the Eras Tour night after night on TikTok? Or did you?"

TIME magazine pleads inanely in support of its choice for "Person of the Year."

There are always pop culture stars. You can always select the most outstanding musical performer. But Time has never chosen an artist of any kind as "Person of the Year." Not The Beatles. Not Andy Warhol. Not J.K. Rowling. Not anyone in the arts, popular or lofty.

I'm not counting those who were in groups that were recognized for something other than artistry. Swift herself was included in "The Silence Breakers" in 2017. And Bono was included in "The Good Samaritans" in 2005. I mean, I've been included — in "You" (2006), "The American Woman" (1975), and "The Inheritor" (1966).

The only interesting question in this selection of Taylor Swift is not how many times did I, while scrolling, see her photograph but why did Time pass up all the world leaders and political contenders this time around? I'm thinking they're either mediocre or they're extraordinary people whom Time wishes would just disappear.

ADDED: "Never have the young been left more completely to their own devices. No adult can or will tell them what earlier generations were told: this is God, that is Good, this is Art, that is Not Done." — That was Time, in 1966, talking 'bout my generation.

The Oxford "Word of the Year" is one of those Gen Z slang words that is just an abbreviated version of a regular word.

It's "rizz" — short for "charisma."

Reported here in the NYT, which offers some detail on the procedure, because you want assurance that the selection is not rigged:

"Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023 is authentic.... A high-volume lookup most years, authentic saw a substantial increase in 2023..."

"... driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media.... Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate—two reasons it sends many people to the dictionary."

Announces Merriam-Webster.

They call attention to a headline I hadn't noticed and don't feel I even need to understand: "Three Ways To Tap Into Taylor Swift’s Authenticity And Build An Eras-Like Workplace."

That article came out a month ago in Forbes, which tells us: "Swift’s events brim with energy, carried by the thunderous voices – some melodious, others less in tune – of thousands: the opposite of how work feels today. According to recent data, 60% of employees are emotionally detached, and one in five is miserable."

Why would anyone want the workplace to feel like a pop concert? Why would the answer involve the concept of "authenticity"?

Take Hannah Shirley, a 23-year-old tech worker who recently went viral for pointing out that her job was “like a full-time acting gig.” She tik-toked one consequence of this: feeling “drained — especially mentally, sometimes even physically — from the character that …we play at work.”...

A Taylor Swift lyric is quoted: “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism? Like some kind of congressman?”

Forbes goes on:

What happens during an Eras event that makes it so engaging? There is realness, empathy, kindness, listening, a narrative (or journey-like) space big enough for all to partake and feel whole with oneself and others. The whole experience is devoid of pretension. Take this recipe and break it into three precepts – avoid alienation, increase authentic living and balance external pressure – and you have a roadmap for creating an Eras-like workplace culture....

I don't see how merger with a huge crowd is a feeling that you could — or would want — to take into the workplace. Even if I did, I wouldn't think of it as "authenticity." 

***

I've written about the word "authentic" many times on this blog. A few examples.... (and the first thing I see, strangely enough, has Taylor Swift in it):

On March 20, 2010, I quoted John Hinderaker saying "Much as Bob Dylan was the most authentic spokesman for his generation, Taylor Swift is the most authentic spokesman for hers." I say: "that's a trick assertion, since Bob Dylan was never about authenticity." I quoted Sean Wilentz:

During the first half of the concert, after singing "Gates of Eden," Dylan got into a little riff about how the song shouldn't scare anybody, that it was only Halloween, and that he had his Bob Dylan mask on. "I'm masquerading!" he joked, elongating the second word into a laugh. The joke was serious. Bob Dylan, né Zimmerman, brilliantly cultivated his celebrity, but he was really an artist and entertainer, a man behind a mask, a great entertainer, maybe, but basically just that—someone who threw words together, astounding as they were. The burden of being something else — a guru, a political theorist, "the voice of a generation," as he facetiously put it in an interview a few years ago — was too much to ask of anyone.

On June 17, 2015, I talked about a Slate writer's advice to Hillary Clinton that she should "offer voters her authentic, geeky self. I said "We've been seeing the word 'authentic' a lot lately — what with Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal. There's this idea we seem to like that everyone has a real identity inside and that if we've got an inconsistent outward presentation of ourselves it would be wonderful for the inner being to cast off that phony shell. But 'authenticity' can be another phony shell...."

On December 19, 2017, I wrote about Facebook's purported goal of "authentic engagement." I said:

Facebook wants you to engage... with Facebook. They want the direct interface with the authentic person, not for some other operation to leverage itself through Facebook. And it makes sense to say that the exclusion of these interposers makes the experience better for the authentic people who use Facebook.... 

On a more metaphysical level: What is authentic anymore? What is the authentic/artificial distinction that Facebook claims — authentically/artificially — to be the police of? Is there an authentic authentic/artificial distinction or is the authentic/artificial distinction artificial?

AND: I'm reading a book that I think has a lot to say about the authentic/artificial distinction. You can tell by the title: "Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself" (Subtitle: "A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace"). But the word "authentic" never appears in the book, and the word "artificial" only appears in the context of "artificial spit" ("it’s called Zero-Lube. It’s an actual pharmaceutical product").

On March 9, 2018, I blogged about something Nancy Pelosi said about "RuPaul's Drag Race." According to The Hollywood Reporter, she "suggested that politicians could learn a thing or two from Ru's girls: 'Authenticity. Taking pride in who you are. Knowing your power....'" Reading the comments on my post, I added:

Everyone jumps on that word "authenticity." "I mean, I'm all for people doing what they want -- except for misusing words like 'authenticity'" (fivewheels); "Authenticity? A man dressed as an over-the-top woman is authentic?" (Annie C); and the inevitable "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" (Ignorance is Bliss). Yeah? Well, when a person putting on a show is in costume and makeup, you could say he's an authentic showperson. And, anyway, what makes you think you're so authentic? 

My mind drifted back to this 1967 song by Jake Holmes, "Genuine Imitation Life": 

chameleons changing colors while a crocodile cries
people rubbing elbows but never touching eyes
taking off their masks revealing still another guise
genuine imitation life
people buying happiness and manufactured fun
everybody doing everybody done
people count on people who can only count to one
genuine imitation life

"Swift is as inescapable as Captain America once was...."

From a Washington Post headline I didn't click on. It promised: "Here’s how to understand the phenomenon."

I'm just going to guess that what explains the purported inescapability is that mainstream media puts it on their front page every damned day. If I click, it should say, ha ha, your click is the reason. I resist this recursive madness.

And yet, I think Captain America was, recently, a woman, so perhaps the answer is: We always need a beautiful woman upon whom to project our hopes and dreams.

ADDED: It's a kind of serial monogamy. Not long ago, it was Barbie every day. They're not doing Barbie anymore. It's Taylor Swift every day.

Cop cues up a Taylor Swift song so the video a man is making of him will run afoul of YouTube's copyright enforcement and get censored.

But here's the video on YouTube, where it's been since July 1st: 

I found that via "An officer played a Taylor Swift song to keep his recording off YouTube. Instead it went viral" (WaPo).

I wouldn't have cared in the slightest about watching the new Taylor Swift video...

... but The Federalist was going on about it incomprehensibly to the point where it was easier to watch the video:



The piece at The Federalist, by Emily Jashinsky, is "Taylor Swift’s ‘You Need To Calm Down’ Is Breathtakingly Elitist." I will now try to read it:

While tech billionaires mine our divisions for profit, Taylor Swift is playing house in a trailer park. That’s the irony of “You Need To Calm Down,” which belongs to the dark era of shrieking keyboard warfare it rebukes, despite a blindingly bright aesthetic.

Yes, it's very candy colored. Taylor Swift makes herself a cotton candy smoothie for breakfast. We're in a special fantasy world.

To illustrate her LGBT pride anthem, Swift assembled the glitterati, casting them as the heroes of a utopian trailer park where her feud with Katy Perry ends, and ugly gay marriage protesters meet their match in a fabulous show of celebrity force.

This badly needs a copy editor. What are "ugly gay marriage protesters" supposed to be protesting? At least give me a hyphen between "gay" and "marriage" so I can see that we're not talking about ugly gay people protesting marriage.

The feud with Katy Perry (news to me) ends with Swift dressed up as a packet of French fries and Perry dressed up as a cheeseburger... and they hug. Because they go together.

[T]he protesters... look like they should be playing banjos in “Deliverance”: toothless, badly dressed, holding misspelled signs.

Who should identify with these people? They're such a cartoony exaggeration, they don't look like anyone who really exists. So everyone's safe.

Tennessee Senatorial candidate Phil Bredeson promotes that endorsement he got from Taylor Swift.

Here's the ad:



I think that works more as an anti-Taylor Swift ad. Is that her music in any way? It was horrible! CNN reports:

In a video, simply titled "Taylor Swift," Bredesen's campaign cribs Swift's song, "Look What You Made Me Do" with a slate aimed at his opponent, Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, that reads, "Look What Marsha Made Her Do." The video then proceeds to clip together news coverage of Swift's unexpected endorsement, with reporters repeatedly noting the move is "out of the norm" for Swift.

Wow. So that was Taylor Swift music?! Here's the original, which seems kind of okay, maybe because we get to look at the lovely young woman (and not that Harry-Morgan-looking guy):



And if the sheer badness of that appropriation of her music and her once-politics-free image were not enough, the new NYT/Siena poll has support for Blackburn suddenly up by 14 points!