Swifties say they’re leaving X over Elon Musk’s support of Donald Trump—and the rhetoric that has erupted on the platform following Trump’s win.
Vittoria Elliott • November 2024
FOLLOWING THE US presidential election, Swifties, the name for Taylor Swift’s fans, are fleeing X for Bluesky. X’s owner, billionaire Elon Musk, was one of Donald Trump’s biggest backers, funneling over $100 million into the Trump-supporting America PAC; stumping for the candidate on the campaign trail; and boosting Trump’s messaging on X. Musk also helped Trump tap into a distinctly right-wing male audience. Swifties, who have built a robust community on the platform formerly known as Twitter, took notice. By Thursday, less than 48 hours after Trump won the presidency, they were starting to flock from the platform for good.
“I love the idea of building a new community here and would love not to have to support Elon in any way,” says Justin, who goes by @justin-the-baron.swifties.social on Bluesky and asked to use only his first name for fear of harassment. “Elon is of course a big Trump supporter, which doesn’t align with Taylor’s values or the values of Swifties.”
Though there are Swifties on all sides of the political spectrum, the community prides itself on being a positive and accepting space. After Kamala Harris was announced as the Democratic nominee for president, Swifties began to mobilize to support her. In September, Swift herself endorsed Harris. In an Instagram post announcing her support, Swift cited AI-generated images of herself and her fans that had been used by Trump to imply she’d endorsed him.
Following the endorsement, Musk posted, “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.” Musk, who has repeatedly shared concerns about declining birth rates, has at least 11 children with at least three women. According to The New York Times, he also offered his sperm to Nicole Shanahan, the former running mate for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (She declined.)
Irene Kim, an organizer with Swifties for Kamala, says that the outpouring of misogyny following the election pushed her and many other Swift fans to abandon X and seek refuge on Bluesky. Though research has found that hate speech and disinformation increased after Musk took over the platform, the election of Trump seems to have supercharged it. A report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that in the 24 hours following Trump’s electoral victory, phrases like “Your body, my choice,” parroting the election night rhetoric of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, rose 4,600 percent on X.
“I think that’s the kind of rhetoric we want to get away from,” Kim says. She also notes that X’s recent update to the “block” feature, which allows people to see the profile and posts of users that have blocked them, has contributed to a more negative experience on the platform. “Twitter has definitely become such a hellscape,” Kim says.
Although Justin says he has been on Bluesky for more than a year, he mostly used X until this week. “After the election, the timeline was full of Swifties getting DMs from Trump supporters threatening rape or sexual assault and making sexually violent comments gloating because Trump won,” he says.
On Bluesky, however, both Justin and Kim say that they have noticed a tangible difference, feeling safer and more supported by the community itself. “The Swifties are here and I, for one, welcome our new overlords,” one user posted.
“Bluesky literally feels like a social media app again, where I’m just connected with my community or like other interesting posts. I feel like people aren’t as geared up to fight you,” says Kim. Over the past 48 hours she has been hopping back to X to encourage people to migrate to Bluesky. “Who knows if the momentum will keep up and everything will actually move over and stay there,” she says, “but right now it just feels like such a breath of fresh air.”
As of this writing, there are nearly 200 Swift-themed starter packs—collections of accounts that Bluesky users can invite people to follow. Nearly all of them have been created in the past 24 hours.
“If I, one day, can never open [X] again because all the Swifties are here, it’s a massive triumph,” says Justin.
Resource: https://www.wired.com/story/taylor-swift-fans-leaving-x-following-trumps-election/
