Following the US presidential election, Swifties, the identify for Taylor Swift’s followers, are fleeing X for Bluesky. X’s proprietor, billionaire Elon Musk, was one among Donald Trump’s largest backers, funneling over $100 million into the Trump-supporting America PAC; stumping for the candidate on the marketing campaign path; and boosting Trump’s messaging on X. Musk additionally helped Trump faucet right into a distinctly right-wing male viewers. Swifties, who’ve constructed a strong neighborhood on the platform previously often known 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 concept of constructing a brand new neighborhood right here and would love to not need to 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 identify for concern of harassment. “Elon is after all a giant 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 started to mobilize to help her. In September, Swift herself endorsed Harris. In an Instagram submit saying her help, Swift cited AI-generated pictures of herself and her followers that had been utilized by Trump to suggest she’d endorsed him.
Following the endorsement, Musk posted, “Positive Taylor … you win … I offers you a baby and guard your cats with my life.” Musk, who has repeatedly shared considerations about declining start charges, has no less than 11 kids with no less than three girls. In line with The New York Instances, he additionally supplied his sperm to Nicole Shanahan, the previous working mate for unbiased candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (She declined.)
Irene Kim, an organizer with Swifties for Kamala, says that the outpouring of misogyny following the election pushed her and plenty of different Swift followers to desert X and search refuge on Bluesky. Although analysis has discovered that hate speech and disinformation elevated 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 evening rhetoric of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, rose 4,600 p.c on X.
“I feel that is the type of rhetoric we need to get away from,” Kim says. She additionally notes that X’s current replace to the “block” characteristic, which permits individuals to see the profile and posts of customers which have blocked them, has contributed to a extra damaging expertise on the platform. “Twitter has positively grow to be such a hellscape,” Kim says.
