Following the US presidential election, Swifties, the title for Taylor Swift’s followers, are fleeing X for Bluesky. X’s proprietor, billionaire Elon Musk, was certainly one of Donald Trump’s biggest backers, funneling over $100 million into the Trump-supporting America PAC; stumping for the candidate on the campaign trail; and boosting Trump’s messaging on X. Musk additionally helped Trump faucet right into a distinctly right-wing male audience. Swifties, who’ve constructed a sturdy neighborhood on the platform previously referred to as Twitter, took discover. By Thursday, lower than 48 hours after Trump gained the presidency, they have been beginning to flock from the platform for good.
“I like the thought of constructing a brand new neighborhood right here and would love to not must help Elon in any means,” says Justin, who goes by @justin-the-baron.swifties.social on Bluesky and requested to make use of solely his first title for worry of harassment. “Elon is after all an enormous Trump supporter, which does not align with Taylor’s values or the values of Swifties.”
Although there are Swifties on all sides of the political spectrum, the neighborhood prides itself on being a optimistic and accepting area. After Kamala Harris was introduced because the Democratic nominee for president, Swifties began to mobilize to support her. In September, Swift herself endorsed Harris. In an Instagram post asserting her help, Swift cited AI-generated images of herself and her fans that had been utilized by Trump to indicate she’d endorsed him.
Following the endorsement, Musk posted, “High quality Taylor … you win … I will provide you with a toddler and guard your cats with my life.” Musk, who has repeatedly shared issues about declining delivery charges, has at the least 11 kids with at the least three ladies. According to The New York Times, he additionally supplied his sperm to Nicole Shanahan, the previous operating mate for unbiased candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (She declined.)
Irene Kim, an organizer with Swifties for Harris, says that the outpouring of misogyny following the election pushed her and lots of different Swift followers to desert X and search refuge on Bluesky. Although analysis has discovered that hate speech and disinformation increased after Musk took over the platform, the election of Trump appears to have supercharged it. A report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue discovered that within the 24 hours following Trump’s electoral victory, phrases like “Your physique, my alternative,” parroting the election night rhetoric of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, rose 4,600 p.c on X.
“I believe that is the form of rhetoric we wish to get away from,” Kim says. She additionally notes that X’s recent update to the “block” function, which permits individuals to see the profile and posts of customers which have blocked them, has contributed to a extra unfavorable expertise on the platform. “Twitter has undoubtedly change into such a hellscape,” Kim says.
