Taylor Swift endorses Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10, 2024. (Taylor Swift/Instagram)
Alexia: Hi! I’m Alexia Bailey, a freshman here at CU Boulder. While I may just be getting started, I’m here to share everything I’ve picked up so far, which is a surprising amount of information. “What’s eating at Alexia” is my unofficial and unfiltered guide to some of the things that being a CU Boulder Buff brings. Think of it as your guide to navigating everything that makes CU Boulder, well, CU Boulder. Whether you’re a freshman finding your footing or a senior with “no body, no crime” level grievances about finals week, I’m here to share my takes, tips and honest observations on everything from the sometimes-unpredictable Buff Bus system to navigating campus protests (or dodging them entirely). College is a wild, unforgettable ride, and “What’s eating at Alexia” is here to make sense of some of it, one opinion at a time.
As with past elections, the role of new voters is crucial. However, something that has become more nuanced is the use of social media to connect with young voters. Social media has been prevalent in the lives of this generation since they were children. Our parents joined Facebook and shared pictures of our lives, creating a digital photo album of our childhoods. For many of us, Instagram and Musical.ly (now known as TikTok) were our first social media apps. Both Instagram and TikTok now run rampant with political videos and propaganda, influencing young voters to support different candidates.
The Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, is known for his provocative X (formerly Twitter) account, while the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, is known for her youth-centric KamalaHQ TikTok account.
But in my opinion, what’s truly making headlines now is celebrity endorsements. In a statement that now has 11 million likes, singer-songwriter and billionaire Taylor Swift endorsed Harris shortly after the presidential debate. The singer, a known left-leaning celebrity, took to Instagram to state that she’d be casting her vote for Harris and her running mate Tim Walz. It is important to note that Swift has a whopping 283 million followers, many of those being first-time voters, myself included.
Swift isn’t the first celebrity to publicly voice her opinion on the upcoming election. Billie Eilish, Martha Stewart, Charli XCX and Elon Musk have all publicly supported a presidential candidate.
Other public figures, such as Chappell Roan, have purposely refrained from supporting either party, stating that both sides have their issues. Roan’s aversion to endorsing a candidate has landed her in hot water and has led many to call her a ‘privileged’ celebrity. Some people criticizing Roan have said that now is the most important time for a celebrity to endorse and it would be completely ludicrous in this major election not to.
But how do students at the University of Colorado Boulder, specifically new voters, feel about celebrities weighing in on the election?
“I think it’s more important to encourage people to vote in general rather than vote for a certain candidate,” said Carley Blim, a freshman at CU Boulder.
Other students say it can help candidates gain traction.
“I feel like having celebrities endorse you is great marketing,” sad Lola Cassese, another CU Boulder freshman.
As a new voter myself, the idea of my favorite celebrity endorsing a presidential candidate sounds cool on the surface. I feel like it humanizes them to know that they receive the same ballot and vote for the same people that I do. But when we go below the surface, celebrities endorsing a political candidate can unfairly sway uninformed voters to vote for people that they wouldn’t vote for if they were more informed.
We all know that what celebrities say matters. Sometimes what they say overpowers our own opinions about things. It’s conformity at its finest. But, unfortunately, it makes the political election more polarized than ever before.
But, Alexia, what do we do instead of listening to celebrities?
Forming your own opinions based on your own belief system is incredibly important. It is what makes your voice unique. The consensus among CU Boulder students that I talked to was that they knew multiple celebrities who have endorsed a candidate or signaled which political party they support and, oftentimes, the celebrity’s endorsement coincided with the student’s own personal beliefs.
Another common response was that singers should stick to singing, models should stick to modeling, actors should stick to acting and so on. But I believe that the notion that “singers should stick to singing” is false. They have just as much of a right as any ordinary citizen to voice their opinion. But the opinion of the seemingly informed Taylor Swift should be valued as much as the opinion of any other informed 34-year-old. Celebrity endorsement statements shouldn’t be the end-all-be-all when it comes to being informed about this year’s election.
This election may be incredibly important, and it is important that celebrities voice their own opinions but it is equally as important that you create your own opinion on the election and the world around you.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Alexia Bailey at alexia.bailey@colorado.edu.
