Taylor Swift used only Instagram to endorse Kamala Harris. There’s a reason for that.
Taylor Swift used Instagram and Twitter in 2020 to make her presidential endorsement. This week, it was just Instagram.
Let’s say you’re one of the most popular people in the world, and you have something important to say. Where do you say it?
If it’s 2024, and you’re Taylor Swift, this a no-brainer: Of course you use Instagram, which is where she endorsed Kamala Harris Tuesday night.
That’s partly an endorsement of Meta’s photo/video platform, where she has 283 million followers.
But if you’re in a glass-half-empty frame of mind, it’s also a comment about the state of social media: Where else could Swift have gone?
In 2020, when Swift endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket, she used Instagram and the service that was still called Twitter.
But Swift certainly knows that if she used Twitter this time around, new owner Elon Musk, who has renamed the service X, would treat her use of his platform as a personal victory. (Which is what his team did after Joe Biden used Twitter to announce he was leaving the presidential race in July.)
Swift still uses Twitter, where she has 95 million followers, mostly to celebrate her album releases and tour stops.
But you can imagine a bunch of reasons why she wouldn’t want to use Twitter to make a political statement today, and all of them have to do with Musk. The world’s richest man is a very hands-on owner, and it’s impossible to disconnect his actions, behaviors, and world views from his service. Not to mention the fact that as of July he’s an out-in-the-open Trump supporter.
What about Facebook? Swift has 80 million followers there, too. But Facebook is where Taylor Swift’s fan’s parents hang out. It’s not her jam, which explains why she hasn’t posted there since April.
And while we know Swift values TikTok — so much so that she used the video platform while her music label was still feuding with its owners — it’s not really a place where you type and read.
So it’s Instagram by choice. And by default.
Two quick other thoughts on this:
- You know how Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his lieutenants keep saying they don’t want their platforms to get involved in politics? Swift’s post is a reminder that while platforms can set up algorithms, incentives, and guardrails to guide user behavior, users are still going to steer the platforms in directions that appeal to them. For better and for worse.
- Swift’s non-use of Twitter has to suck for Musk. Prior to buying Twitter in 2022, Musk would point out that celebrities with really high Twitter followings were no longer using the platform, suggesting that he would fix that once he owned it. Instead, his ownership prompted lots of celebrities to leave his service. So now, instead of Swift using his Twitter to make news, he’s forced to make news by responding to Swift with a creepy offer/joke to impregnate her:
Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 11, 2024
