{"id":97245,"date":"2016-05-25T06:54:51","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T14:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=97245"},"modified":"2016-05-25T06:54:51","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T14:54:51","slug":"wp-alt-right-white-supremacists-have-chosen-taylor-swift-as-their-aryan-goddess-icon-through-no-fault-of-her-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=97245","title":{"rendered":"WP: \u2018Alt-right\u2019 white supremacists have chosen Taylor Swift as their \u2018Aryan goddess\u2019 icon, through no fault of her own"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington Post<\/a>: Taylor Swift is not a white supremacist. She doesn\u2019t identify as a neo-Nazi, and there is no evidence to suggest that, behind closed doors, she might.<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t stopped some white supremacists from the \u201calt-right,\u201d a fringe group of the movement that often uses humor and message boards like 4chan<\/a> to spread its ideology, from reportedly choosing her \u2014 ironically or not remains unclear \u2014 as an icon for their movement. In much the same way Cher or Barbra Streisand can be seen as \u201cgay icons<\/a>,\u201d a series of Internet memes, articles and message board posts have dubbed Swift an \u201cAryan goddess.\u201d<\/p>\n

It appears to have begun in 2013 when a teenager named Emily Pattinson began overlaying quotes by Adolf Hitler on Pinterest photos of Taylor Swift as a joke, Buzzfeed reported<\/a>. Swift\u2019s lawyer J. Douglas Baldridge, sent Pinterest a stern letter, asking for the images to be removed. It said, in part:<\/p>\n

\n

The association of Ms. Swift with Adolf Hitler undisputedly is \u2018harmful,\u2019 \u2018abusive,\u2019 \u2018ethnically offensive,\u2019 \u2018humiliating to other people,\u2019 \u2018libelous,\u2019 and no doubt \u2018otherwise objectionable.\u2019 It is of no import that Ms. Swift may be a public figure or that Pinterest conveniently now argues that the Offending Material is mere satire or parody. Public figures have rights. And, there are certain historical figures, such as Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson and the like, who are universally identified in the case law and popular culture as lightning rods for emotional and negative reaction.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Pinterest refused to take it down, citing parody laws. But those same images now appear on The Daily Stormer, which bills itself as \u201cthe world\u2019s most visited alt-right website.\u201d<\/p>\n

The site was founded by self-proclaimed white supremacist Andrew Anglin after he realized Internet users were more interested in quick-hit, meme-type content than the long essays on white supremacy he would post on his previous site, \u201cTotal Fascism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy ideology is very simple,\u201d Anglin told<\/a> the Los Angeles Times. \u201cI believe white people deserve their own country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Southern Poverty Law Center dubbed it<\/a> a \u201cneo-Nazi website\u201d and one of the two most popular \u201chate sites\u201d online. Dylann Roof, the alleged shooter in the Charleston church massacre, was active on the site<\/a>, and the idea of \u201cwhite student unions,\u201d which popped up around the country last November, percolated there<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The idea of Swift as an alt-right pop icon seems to have percolated there as well.<\/p>\n

Along with the memes, the Daily Stormer has become home to several pages of articles praising Swift that bear titles like \u201cTaylor Swift, Avatar of European Imperialism<\/a>,\u201d \u201cAryan Goddess Taylor Swift: Nazi Avatar of the White European People<\/a>\u201d and \u201cAryan Goddess Taylor Swift Accused of Racism for Behaving Like an Ape in a Music Video<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTaylor Swift is a pure Aryan goddess, like something out of classical Greek poetry,\u201d Anglin told<\/a> Vice\u2019s Broadly. \u201cAthena reborn. That\u2019s the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Columnist Milo Yiannopoulos explained in Breitbart<\/a> the alt-right thinks \u201cSwift is covertly \u2018red-pilled,\u2019 concealing her secret conservative values from the progressive music industry while issuing subtle nods to a reactionary fanbase.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yiannopoulos wrote that Swift presents a perfect storm: she\u2019s white, blonde and doesn\u2019t speak about her politics. Meanwhile, she\u2019s drawn criticism regarding race in recent years.<\/p>\n

In Pacific Standard<\/a>, writer Aaron Bady accused Swift of being \u201cnostalgic for a time when you could<\/em> be nostalgic for white supremacy\u201d after her Africa-set video for \u201cWildest Dreams\u201d came out, which also prompted the NPR headline \u201cTaylor Swift Is Dreaming Of A Very White Africa<\/a>.\u201d Writer Camille Paglia inexplicably referred to her both as a \u201cNazi Barbie\u201d and a \u201cfascist\u201d in a December column<\/a> for The Hollywood Reporter. And, in 2009, a photo circulated the Internet<\/a> showing her dancing with a man in a white t-shirt bearing a sloppy red swastika.<\/p>\n

These are isolated incidents, but white supremacist websites have taken them out of context. For example, in the photograph, Swift wears a shirt with the letters \u201cJH,\u201d which someone on the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront<\/a> claimed means \u201cJew Hater.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Post: Taylor Swift is not a white supremacist. She doesn\u2019t identify as a neo-Nazi, and there is no evidence to suggest that, behind closed doors, she might. That hasn\u2019t stopped some white supremacists from the \u201calt-right,\u201d a fringe group … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42720],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alt-right"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97246,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97245\/revisions\/97246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}