Taylor Swift seems to be everything, everywhere, all at once these days.
While her fans map the distance between Las Vegas and Tokyo to figure out if she can make it back to the United States in time for Super Bowl LVIII and her skeptics question whether or not her highly publicized romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is just part of an elaborate scheme to get President Joe Biden re-elected, a large number of people are left wondering why they can’t turn on the TV or check their social media feeds without being inundated with news about pop star.
On Tuesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Britt Mayer, founder of Rooted Wings, to discuss Swift’s meteoric fame and why it may not last forever.
Media Mastermind
Conspiracy theories are abounding that the Super Bowl will be rigged in favor of the Chiefs so that Kelce and Swift can declare their support for Biden on the field after the game. Megyn noted that people who she “likes and respects” are pushing the speculation, which led her to wonder why people “are so afraid” of Swift. “People are acting like Taylor Swift actually holds the key to the presidency,” she said. “She does have power. She does have influence… Whether she can sway entire elections with her magical endorsement is another very open question.”
Even so, there is no question that everyone is watching every move Swift makes at the moment. Megyn said it’s to the point that her kids joked they were relieved to see that the Grammy winner wasn’t on the cover of The New York Post today. “The reason she’s on the cover of The New York Post so often is because people are interested in her,” she noted. “She’s being propped up by a media that loves the number of hits she gets.”
While Megyn admitted that the coverage feels like “a lot,” she said Swift is not to blame. “It’s not her fault. It’s the TV cameras that will capture her, and the director of the show who says pop her back on,” she explained. “They’re doing that for the same reason The Post… and all the newspapers and magazines are putting her on. She rates. She’s interesting to some vast majority of people.”
Look What You Made Them Do
In Mayer’s view, Swift’s popularity and the conspiracy theories making the rounds right now are actually reflective of a larger cultural problem. “We’ve created a generation of kids – the Gen Zers – that, unfortunately, we’ve dumbed down,” she said. “They’re not learning history, the way that we did, the classical method of education has been tossed out the door… and this generation of kids is being raised on a sugar diet of pop culture and social media.”
The reason why the Biden administration may be clamoring for Swift’s endorsement, Mayer said, is because of the access she has to this impressionable group. “You have someone like Taylor Swift, who’s sparkly and popular and brings the crowds en masse, and then you have her subjects who haven’t been trained to think beyond the headline of the day and the tweet of the day,” she explained. “So, it’s just ripe for someone like Taylor Swift to step in and tell her minions who to vote for and the crowd goes wild.”
Under that premise, Kelce brings his own star power. “The Democrat Party has lost so many of the young men who fled to the conservative circles because they don’t want to be emasculated,” Mayer noted. “But you’ve got Travis Kelce, who could become ‘Mr. Super Bowl’ bringing in the young boys, while Taylor Swift is bringing in the young girls.”
It’s a sad commentary and Mayer said society – not Swift or Kelce – is at fault. “Overall, I think the reality is that we’ve got to do better for our youth and prop up actual heroes instead of sparkly superstars who are adored en masse,” she added.
Ultimately, Megyn said the rise to stardom can be just as swift as the fall. “This is what we do in America: We choose somebody, we build them up, and then we crush them,” she concluded. “If she’s smart, she will stay nonpolitical… She will not be the most popular person in America if she continues to antagonize half the country that votes Republican.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Mayer by tuning in to episode 713 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.