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Ooh boy, this just triggered a rant. Be forewarned!
I do appreciate people like Taylor Swift using their privilege as celebrities to do something decent for those on the less fortunate end of the social totem pole, yes. But alas, that doesn't change the fact that she's still a celebrity, which means that she belongs to a system where people like her are rewarded with more money than a thousand "mere mortals" will ever make in their lifetimes an order of magnitude over, plus even more than that in sociocultural capital that tends to manifest in this social media age especially as a practically god-like cult of personality with all of the fervor and toxicity that comes with that. All merely because they happen to have talent, plus enough charm and charisma to sell things and — above all else for their corporate handlers, the real gods in the room — make a hell of lot of money for a very small and exclusive club of people; money that will be in all likelihood kept as a dragon's hoard rather than put to any actual use for those who actually need it. And yet Taylor's increasing reputation for "sticking up for the little guy" in the form of all of the again admittedly good things that she's stood for as of late, she still seems to be quite comfortable in the system that created her and the power that she wields in the first place, as all celebrities seem to be even as they do such good things and more often than not become more wealthy, more powerful, and more well-liked. Or at worst, receive some backlash — whether from corporate handlers or from mere naysayers or from genuinely nasty bad-faith actors — that is more often than not promptly balanced out by their cult-of-personality followers who defend and stand for nearly everything they do without question and often through extremely toxic and destructive means again via social media and the like. In either case, a vicious cycle of power-gathering tends to continue with all of that with celebrities as the beneficiary above all others, because for whatever "the little guy" gains from celebrities do for them, they will always be mere scraps relative to what celebrities get out of it all — by the sheer nature of them being celebrities and without them even really trying — because nothing has really changed with the system; it's merely change within the system.
Meanwhile, in the case of Taylor Swift, I would be far more impressed with her if she, with the vast financial and sociocultural capital that she wields, just went up to the executives at Big Music, gave them the middle finger, and then proceeded to create her own record label with her in complete and total control, and then from her proverbial throne with her legions of ever-loyal fans backing her up, rewrite the whole game of the industry in a way that makes people stand up and notice; that makes people follow. And then, with all of her power and privilege... proceed to give it all up so that all of the "little guys" with talent and dreams whose names no one knows will have just as much as a voice as she does, will be able to express their truest authentic thoughts and selves as much as she does, and never have to want for money ever again in their lives like she does; all thousands of times over because when power and privilege is given up, there will always be plenty to go around. And all of that is something that we all know that she could do whenever she wants if she really wanted to, being that nowadays she is not just merely Taylor Swift but Taylor fucking Swift; that she's so famous that she's Time magazine's goddamn Person of the Year (!!!) in a time where I could easily pick out half a dozen people who made headlines in the last three months alone who very arguably deserve that spot more, given the state of the world outside that of music and celebrities. That's how much of a force of nature she is right now, and yet...
...am I just impatient in waiting for a revolution from arguably the most powerful and influential performer in popular music right now outside of perhaps Beyoncé? Or, perhaps, like many a fan of celebrity, I've fallen into the trap of expecting too much from people whose hearts I don't truly know as much as I'd like to think that I do?
Speaking of Beyoncé, though, perhaps I would also at least be slightly more impressed with Taylor if she took a few pages out of her "sticking up for the little guy" playbook. Just be to be clear, though, I'm not trying to pit these two women against each other or do so by proxy by comparing "Swifties" vs. "the Beehive" (some of whom might've preferred Beyoncé to have been Time's Person of the Year instead of Taylor, haha). With that said... although I don't necessarily like everything that Beyoncé does as an artist or agree with everything that she does — including entertaining the existence of said "Beehive" in its current often zealous and toxic form that's simultaneously in no small part responsible for her continued relevance and power (not to suggest that "Swifties" and their equivalents elsewhere aren't guilty of zealotry and toxicity too, of course) — and that she herself arguably indulges too much in her privilege as a celebrity to be a true revolutionary that — like with Taylor — I believe that she could be if she really wanted to, I get the impression that she's at least trying, in her own little ways and with the particular things that are clearly important to her. After all, there's certainly no way in hell that something like The Gift — and especially not Black Is King (the hint is in the title, haha) — would've ever come into existence in an industry without the power and influence that Beyoncé clearly wields in it, and most certainly wielded in those cases.
Still — and again not trying to single out either Taylor or Beyoncé or pit them against each other here — I truly do believe that there's a road yet unexplored where either (or both!) could turn the entire industry on its head and make lasting and positive change there and elsewhere on an epic, untold scale. But again, I suspect that they might be just a bit too comfortable with their privilege as celebrities to go that extra mile; or perhaps, less cynically, they might just lack the imagination to provide them that kind of truly rebellious spark, whether right now or just as a general flaw of thinking that they have. Because we all know that they have the power to make that kind of revolution happen if they wanted to, and while it might not necessarily be easy (especially not for Beyoncé, I'd imagine, for obvious reasons), they could do it, and their fanbases would most certainly back them up. Maybe I'm overly idealistic here, but in any case, that all — among other reasons that I've alluded to — kind of makes me hesitant to kiss the proverbial ring for what they have done as quite as easily as others have, or to treat them as anything less than the mere humans, not gods, that they really are.
TL;DR and for the youngins' reading this especially: people are flawed and celebrities most definitely are; avoid worshipping them or viewing them as gods or as the ultimate virtuous saviors of society, and most certainly not of the society outside of their own. The saying "never meet your heroes" exists for a reason...
