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Wednesday's Most Active Threads

by Jeff Steele last modified Sep 17, 2024 05:08 PM

Yesterday's topics with the most engagement included Taylor Swift's announcement that she would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, the presidential debate moderators' fact checks, prohibiting a husband from cooking scrambled eggs, and a husband who is having an affair.

The most active thread yesterday continued to be the presidential debate thread that has been among the most active threads since Monday. The most active thread after that was somewhat related. Titled, "Taylor Swift has announced that she is voting for Harris after watching the debate.", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the original poster simply linked to pop star Taylor Swift's Instagram page where she urged her fans to research the presidential candidates. Swift went on to say that she would be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. She signed her post, "Childless Cat Lady" and was pictured holding her cat, an obvious reference to statements by Republican Vice Presidential candidate J. D. Vance. As those responding in the thread pointed out, Swift had been expected to endorse Harris after previously endorsing President Joe Biden. However, there had been some concerns about Swift lately due to her close relationship with Britany Mahomes, wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and a supporter of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. In addition, Trump recently posted a fake video produced using artificial intelligence showing Swift endorsing Trump, something that Swift mentioned in her Instagram post. Supporters of the billionaire celebrity Trump, including his running mate Vance, immediately began suggesting that nobody cares about the opinion of billionaire celebrities. However, Swift seemed to have some impact because interest in voter registration surged as demonstrated by both search engine queries and traffic on vote.gov. There was also discussion about the timing of Swift's post. Her fans suggested that she had been smart to post after the debate because that showed that she had made an informed decision. Critics, however, argued that she was trying to draw attention away from Harris' poor debate performance. This was particularly deluded because Harris was almost universally seen to have had a great debate performance. If anything, the Harris campaign would have preferred the endorsement to have come at another time since they clearly wanted the limelight on Harris and the debate. Like Vance, many of those responding proved to be obsessed with the fertility and marital status of women. Despite Swift's clear ownership of the "childless cat lady" label that Vance has popularized, several posters criticized not only Swift, but Oprah, and Harris herself for not having children. Misogyny from anonymous posters on DCUM may not be important, but then the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, weighed in on X offering to give Swift a child. While Swift is encouraging millions of fans to support Harris, Musk is cementing the Republican Party as the home of misogynist weirdos.

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