Taylor Swift is not a good role model because she is not married: The suspected author of the viral attack against the singer | People

On 27 June Newsweek published an opinion column titled “Taylor Swift is not a good role model.” The starting point was undoubtedly explosive: it was a completely obvious clickbait maneuver that became a global trending topic in just a day and a half. Among the pearls of wisdom in the article was: “Swift’s highly publicized love life has been a source of prime tabloid topics for years. She has dated numerous high-profile men – at least a dozen – including singers Harry Styles and Joe Jonas, actor Jake Gyllenhaal and, more recently, American football player Travis Kelce. This revolving door of relationships may reflect the normal dating experiences of many young women in today’s world, but it also raises questions about stability, commitment and even love itself. Should we encourage young girls to see the ‘Swift standard’ as the norm, as something to aspire to? Or should we encourage something that is, shall we say, a little more respectable?” Would any loving parent reading this want their daughter to date 12 different men in a matter of years?”

The slurs smack of sexism and ultra-conservativeness so much that any critical reader might first ask who the author is. “Swift’s recent outcry against patriarchal structures stands in stark contrast to her personal dating choices. The singer often dates strong, influential men – celebrities who embody significant social and economic power. This can seem hypocritical. Hypocrisy fundamentally undermines the ability to be a good role model because it presents a contradiction between one’s actions and the principles or values ​​one publicly espouses,” the column continues. “Swift and Kelce could persevere, and I hope they do. But judging by their track record, the odds aren’t good.”

The author is a “writer” named John McGhlionn, who is listed as a “doctor of psychosocial studies, researcher and essayist,” although he does not specify which university he received his PhD from, what areas he researches, or what essays he has published. An extensive online search yields no information whatsoever about the said author, other than what appears under his signature in the opinion forums and journalistic pieces (without attribution) he publishes in newspapers known for the low reliability of their content: The New York Post, The audience and the US edition of The sunas well as several digital websites, all created after 2020, that cover current events from a “critical perspective towards the great powers and the establishment”. This is the case of the website of the Brownstone Institute, which presents itself as the digital spokesperson for a conservative association that criticises the way the Covid pandemic has been managed through policies that have been “a failed experiment in total social and economic control in most countries”. He has also collaborated with the minority websites Spiked and Unherd, where he has written articles with salacious headlines such as “Kevin Spacey deserves a comeback”, “Diversity, equality and inclusion are bad for your health”, “The myth of trans genocide” and “The anger of Irish farmers”. The articles all adhere to an editorial line suspiciously similar to that which characterises websites around the world where “essayists” like this one clearly follow the ideology of new libertarians such as Javier Milei in Argentina or Alvise Pérez in Spain, or are in the orbit of Donald Trump.

The mysterious McGhlionn does not have an account on Twitter (or it is currently blocked), but he does have one on Gettr, the social media platform founded by Donald Trump’s former spokesman after the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, which led to the major platforms denying him access. Rounding out the Fachosphere The feeling that surrounds this whole matter is the fact Newsweeka weekly magazine that enjoyed a certain prestige until the 1990s and which underwent a revival attempt in 2010 with the hiring of legendary editor Tina Brown, has been owned since 2018 by IBT Media, a company specializing in headlines that generate junk traffic. And its star publication is precisely the old weekly, which reaches a spectacular figure of 100 million unique users per month thanks to strategies like the one used in this Swift column: free controversy and supposedly politically incorrect ideas.

The life cycle that the headline of this opinion piece has gone through is just another example of how, in the age of social media and fake news, any ultra-conservative digital troll, with the support of a structure, can dictate opinion, or at least the global information agenda, for days.

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