Musicians in the Media: How Artists are Changing Life As We Know It
By OLIVIA CARTANO
Though they are commonly seen simply as sources of entertainment, today’s most popular musicians play a surprisingly large role in how society conducts itself. Artists today are constantly pushing at the boundaries of societal norms.
Take Taylor Swift, for example, who was recently named Forbes’s highest paid celebrity of 2019. In her music video for the single, “You Need to Calm Down,” Swift advocated for equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community, with many LGBTQ+ celebrities making cameos in the video. Swift ended the video imploring viewers to support the Equality Act by signing an online petition. The music video now has over 143 million views and 3.2 million likes on Youtube, which just goes to show how widespread a musician’s influence can be. Swift then went on to speak more about the topic at the 2019 Video Music Awards (VMAs) this August, bringing more attention to an issue that she feels needs to be resolved.
Clearly, musicians are extremely capable of utilizing their vast audiences to bring about change in society.
Another example of an influential musician is the rapper Cardi B. In July 2019, Cardi B publicly endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. As a testament to Cardi B’s fame, her most popular single on the music streaming platform Spotify has been listened to 834,000,000+ times, and this figure is from May 2019, so the number is sure to be even greater now. Cardi B’s endorsement of Senator Sanders is expected to bring a huge amount of support for Sanders in the younger voting population, which is Cardi B’s main audience demographic.
Seeing that a musician can have an impact on American politics is truly amazing, and the actions of both Taylor Swift and Cardi B prove that musicians are some of the most important contributors to societal and political change today.