Voter Registration Skyrockets After Taylor Swift's Plea To 112 Million Fans To Vote, Preferably Democrat

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Superstar Taylor Swift waded into deep political waters on Sunday night, sharing an Instagram post urging her 112 million fans to vote before it was too late.

Leaving millions of right-wing boys crushed with her endorsement of two Tennessee Democratic politicians, Phil Bredesen running for the Senate against Republican Marsha Blackburn, and Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper.

"We are up to 65,000 registrations in a single 24-hour period since T. Swift's post," said Kamari Guthrie, director of communications for Vote.org.

For context, 190,178 new voters were registered nationwide in the entire month of September, while 56,669 were registered in August, reports BuzzFeed News.

In Tennessee specifically, VOTE.org received 5,183 new voter registrations in October, with a minimum of 2,144 coming after Taylor Swift’s Instagram post.

The Blame Game: Taylor Swift Delivers Emotional Thank You; PA Condemns Over 300 Priests As Perpetrators Of Sexual Abuse

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The Blame Game: Taylor Swift Delivers Emotional Thank You; PA Condemns Over 300 Priests As Perpetrators Of Sexual Abuse

It's a year ago that Taylor Swift won her sexual assault case against Colorado DJ David Mueller, who sued her for $3 million in damages after she claimed he placed his hand under her skirt and grabbed her butt hile posing for a photo. Swift filed a countersuit asking for a symbolic $1 in damages, which the jury awarded her in winning her case. 

Swift addresed the issue during an emotional speech for her Tampa Reputation concert. Thanking her fans for their support while stressing the need for better justice for sexual assault victims, Taylor said: "I guess I just think about all the people that weren’t believed and people who haven’t been believed and the people who are afraid to speak up because they think they won’t be believed. And I just wanted to say that I’m sorry to anyone who ever wasn’t believed because I don’t know what turn my life would take if people didn’t believe me when I said that something had happened to me. And so I guess I just wanted to say that we have so, so, so much further to go, and I’m so grateful to you guys for being there for me during what was a really, really horrible part of my life." viaELLE US

The pop star's words ring so relevant this morning, with publication of "a searing report" about bishops and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covering up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over 70 years. The report covered six of the state's eight Catholic dioceses, identifying more tha 1,000 victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests. 

Taylor Swift Reflects On Reinvention, Lensed By Mert & Marcus For Vogue UK January 2018

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British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful transforms Taylor Swift in the January 2018 cover editorial. Lensed by Mert & Marcus, Taylor shares a poem that reflects on the lessons learned as she moves forward. 

Eye: Is Taylor Swift Expressing A Fierce Born-Again Feminism in 'Reputation'? We'll See

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Eye: Is Taylor Swift Expressing A Fierce Born-Again Feminism in 'Reputation'? We'll See

As promised, Taylor Swift dropped her 'Look What You Made Me Do' music video, with perfect timing at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.  Then she moved it to YouTube, where it has nearly 75 million views. Billboard believes it will be No. 1 on next week's 'Hot 100'.

Swift's most ardent fans all believe that 'Reputation' is deeper than originally thought. Buzzfeed lists all the 'hidden meanings' fans are finding in the songs. We don't care about that, but #20 gets our attention.

20. But other people have a different theory -- that each song will be about a different, 'fake' Taylor' created by the media. 

Note that fans feel no complicity in creating this 'fake Taylor'. Fan complicity in creating stars that meet their own needs is never part of their adoration stories. Kim Kardashian understands this reality way better than old-school Taylor Swift. But Swift is perhaps now whip smart on the whole conversation. 

22. The scene where Taylor's standing above a tower of her past selves, all scrabbling to climb up, is full of meaning, too.

Some fans associate these scenes with Taylor Swift's proverbial climb to the top, only to take a fall. Others see it as an emergence of Swift's true self. 

23. And, finally, people have also noticed that this shot resembles a crucifixion. 

This visual brought the new Taylor Swift into strong focus for me. She is defiant, rising again as a Smart Sensuality woman in charge of her own agenda. Fans will never see this as any statement about them and not only the media, Kim and Kanye, and the adoring 'girl' who shared the stage before the entire world, as Kanye West grabbed her trophy, saying it belonged to Beyonce.

Bearing Witness

Eye | Kate Middleton Art Muse | Taylor Swift 1989 & Victoria's Secret | Johnny Depp Loves Pegasus

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ArtTracker

Another People’s Princess?

Last month a spray-painted image of a pregnant Duchess of Cambridge appeared on a wall in Islington, the North London borough Kate Middleton has visited several times in her charity work. The mural is not the work of the street artists Banksy or JR, but Pegasus, a 29-year-old American who goes by Chris.

He spent all night doing this image of Kate because she seems to be really supportive of this borough and people here love her for it,’ says a spokesman for the Faith Inc Gallery on whose outside wall Kate is painted.

It’s only been up since last night and I’ve already had two offers to buy it prised off the wall, which isn’t possible anyway,’ reported London’s Daily Mail.

Johnny Depp Pegasus Drop In

Fast forward to Saturday December 6th where Pegasus had his first solo show at London’s Faith Inc. Gallery. Jaws dropped when actor Johnny Depp made a surprise visit to the gallery, paying £25,000 for a Pegasus painting of a young Queen Elizabeth posing 1950s style in a bathing suit and the Diamond Diadem Tiara.

Depp also commissioned a new work of Catherine Middleton with nothing except a crown on her pregnant stomach. One assumes the final painting will resemble the Islington wall painting.

Related: If Banksy thinks he’s following in Andy Warhol’s footsteps, he’s tripping The Guardian

To quote another guru of modern culture (Marshall McLuhan) the medium is the message: what you do is less important than how you transmit it. If you make street art you instantly, by that act, proclaim so many hip affinities that your art becomes a symbol of widely admired associations and meanings. All graffiti is cool. The form, not the content, defines that coolness. Calling out Banksy as a bad artist is therefore impossible. If you say he’s crap, he will turn out to be in on the joke. He’s the perfect fraud for our time.

So it goes, to the streets of New York, and Warhol is undoubtedly amused in the great sushi bar in the sky.

View more Pegasus artwork at his online gallery.

Pop It

Givenchy 2015

Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci turns to American actor Julia Roberts for its Spring Summer 2015 ad campaign. Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott capture Roberts styled by Katy England.

Asked why he chose Roberts, Riccardo Tisci told WWD:

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