I want to first start this off by making it extremely clear that I am not in any way, shape, or form, saying you have to be a Taylor Swift fan. You don't have to like her, her music, whatever.
That is not at all what I am implying, and I am not saying you are wrong if you don't particularly like her music. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, interests, and the things they enjoy. That's fine.
You don't have to like Taylor Swift. That being said, that's different than going and spreading false information about her and/or buying into certain ideas about her, simply because you refuse to take a minute or two to educate yourself on the facts.
I'm seeing some of this on social media following the release of her most recent song. If you're not up to speed, I'll fill you in very quickly: Taylor released a song on June 14th called You Need To Calm Down. In it, she basically talks about bullying, homophobia, and pitting women against one another.
(Some) people are mad and complaining, saying she's baiting because the song was released during pride month, and this weekend she also did a surprise performance at the Stonewall Inn in NYC, so she was "just trying to promote the new song".
Let's first tackle that idea: First of all, she did the performance because her friend Jesse Tyler Ferguson asked her to, and didn't even use the opportunity to talk about her new song, and instead opted to sing her 2014 hit "Shake It Off". But keep reaching. Additionally, she donated to help preserve the Stonewall Inn back in 2016.
Taylor has been an ally for years. For just a few examples, in her 2011 music video for "Mean", there was a boy who was gay who was bullied. In 2014, her song "Welcome To New York" featured a lyric that goes "and you can want who you want, boys and boys and girls and girls". She's made countless donations to various charities, both in private and publicly.
She penned an open letter earlier this month calling for fans to sign a petition surrounding the Equality Act. Not that having friends in the LGBTQ community makes you an ally automatically, but most of her friends are and she shows support for them constantly, and many of them, including Todrick Hall, have spoken out about the authenticity behind that.
Another important point, a lot of Taylor's fan base are conservative Republicans. She is definitely losing fans and losing support by speaking out against homophobia, not the other way around.
It would be one thing if she'd never stood up for the LGBTQ community then randomly started this year during pride month, but that's not the case. A simple Google search or look on social media will show you that.
The fact of the matter is that if you're blindly claiming that she is baiting without doing any research or taking two seconds to figure out the facts, you're spreading false information and buying into lies just because you want to be a part of a take-down culture. Just say you don't like her and want to choose to be ignorant, and go.
Again, it's fine to not like her or her music, but making false accusations about her actions or her character is something entirely different. Just because she's a celebrity, doesn't make it okay.
