A growing number of Swifties are calling on Taylor Swift to break her silence on Gaza
Ahead of the Madrid leg of Taylor Swift’s globe-trotting Eras Tour, some fans had their minds on more than just her set.
Ahead of the Madrid leg of Taylor Swift’s globe-trotting Eras Tour, some fans had their minds on more than just her set.
In the hours before her Wednesday concert, the hashtag #SwiftiesForPalestine was among the top trends on X, easily besting the hashtag for that evening’s show. Many posts called on concert attendees to take signs to or fly Palestinian flags at the event, hoping they’d catch Swift’s attention and encourage her to speak out.
The hashtag continued to spread Thursday morning with more than 133,000 posts, according to X’s trending page, many of them coming from fan accounts that have posted about Swift for years.
It’s a sentiment that has been building for a while around many celebrities and Swift in particular, with her sizable and vocal fan base, which, when mobilized, can be a formidable political force. In recent days, the scattered activism has boiled over into more palpable outrage — largely driven by Israel’s military offensive in Rafah and an airstrike this month that set a refugee camp aflame, with graphic pictures of the aftermath spreading online. The Israel Defense Forces has said that it was targeting two senior Hamas militants and that tent shelters were not in the immediate vicinity.
“Seeing all these devastating images and videos from Rafah has awoken something in all of us, and we would love Taylor’s support. A lot of people with influence are speaking out, and we see the effects this has,” said Sarah Smits, a Swiftie from Belgium who runs a fan account with more than 56,000 followers on X.
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