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[-] BurgerPunk@hexbear.net 111 points 11 months ago

I forget how the quote goes. Something along the lines of "I don't marvel at Einstein's intellect, but at how many Einstein's wasted behind a plow or in a dark factory." Theres no limit to the amount of people that have the intellect of Einstein or are as talented as Taylor Swift, its the mode of production that keeps most of them from having the chance.

I think what gets lost in nepo baby discourse is that, they aren't all failchildren. Many are actually talented. Its just that they aren't successful because of that. They're successful because they had the opportunity to display talent to the right people. That's what many people equally talented will never have and why they will never have the chance to be successful in a given field.

[-] urshanabi@lemmygrad.ml 88 points 11 months ago

Original quote may have been the following by Steven Jay Gould in his book, The Panda's Thumb:

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops

[-] BurgerPunk@hexbear.net 37 points 11 months ago
[-] TheModerateTankie@hexbear.net 40 points 11 months ago

That's a Stephen Jay Gould quote.

As Stephen Jay Gould wrote in The Panda's Thumb: "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops".

[-] BurgerPunk@hexbear.net 26 points 11 months ago
[-] CA0311@hexbear.net 101 points 11 months ago

not defending the underlying system, just can't help but being in awe that a 300000 dollar investment made taylor swift what she is today. massive return on investment lol.

[-] GinAndJuche@hexbear.net 51 points 11 months ago

A successful fail child? Priceless.

Mastercard

[-] ElChapoDeChapo@hexbear.net 25 points 11 months ago

Yeah I would have expected it to take a million at least

[-] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 25 points 11 months ago

Her parents practically grew her in a lab, it was way more than 300k that did it. Alexander Avila just put out a video that went over her life and rise as part of its analysis on the greater theme of the video

[-] stigsbandit34z@hexbear.net 75 points 11 months ago

You know how some people say the internet is not real life? Definitely not always true, I know some people who fucking worship Taylor swift. Truly the weirdest shit

[-] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 72 points 11 months ago

One of my partners friends almost went to jail over a fight at a Taylor Swift concert

Only got away with it because she smashed in the side of her new Jeep getting away

When she told me this, it took me completely by surprise because this lady is a therapist

[-] stigsbandit34z@hexbear.net 55 points 11 months ago

It’s actually kinda fascinating ngl

I wonder if she realizes the power she has. Could literally lead a Revolution if she wanted

[-] fanbois@hexbear.net 32 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

When her lungs start glowing, we should begin to worry.

[-] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 29 points 11 months ago

Probably the closest thing the world has to The Word of God from Preacher that's for sure

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[-] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 67 points 11 months ago

The 3% stuff is at Wikipedia.

Big Machine Records

Soon after, Big Machine released Swift's first ever recording, the single "Tim McGraw" and her debut album Taylor Swift. Keith dropped his affiliation with the label in 2006, but he was reported as an equity holder in November 2014, alongside the Swift family and Borchetta (the latter reportedly owning 60 percent of the company at the time). In October 2012, Borchetta told Rolling Stone magazine: "[Taylor Swift's father] Scott Swift owns three percent of Big Machine."

Her dad doesn't have a Wikipedia page but he does have a page at a fan site.

Scott Swift | Taylor Swift Wiki | Fandom

In an interview, Taylor briefly discusses her father's work:

In a recent Google/YouTube interview, Ms. Taylor said that at 8, while friends reported wanting to grow up and become astronauts and ballerinas, she wanted to be a financial adviser, like her dad. “My dad is so passionate about what he does, like in the way I'm passionate about music," Ms. Swift said. "He's so gung-ho for his job, and I saw how happy it made him and I just thought, like, 'I can broke stocks.'"

[-] Frank@hexbear.net 63 points 11 months ago

Networking, networking, networking. It's all about who you know. People talk about nepotism a lot and I think that's mostly brainworms from people convinced that meritocracy is real. For most of history it's been people passing down property and capitol to their kids or close allies

[-] vexikron@lemmy.zip 35 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

But you dont understannnnnd! Taylor is such a genuine good person and her music ... its like it was written just for me, me a young woman between the ages of 18 and 36! You just hate her because she is a successful woman in a male dominated industry! Her music is objectively moving and real.

In other news, someone please uh forcefully upload to the brains of all Swifitie stans or whatever 'Cult of Personality' on infinite repeat.

https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=7xxgRUyzgs0

I know /so many/ self proclaimed liberals and leftists who just get seething with rage angry when you mention that Taylor Swift's music is basically cookie cutter pop rock, and that she comes from an obscenely wealthy family of bank executives.

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[-] happybadger@hexbear.net 60 points 11 months ago

Qanon Anonymous just did a premium episode on her cult. It's so fucking weird to me. Like it's just generic pop music about relationships, right?

[-] Orannis62@hexbear.net 43 points 11 months ago

My favorite people in her cult are the ones convinced she's queer and leaving them hints in her music

[-] ashinadash@hexbear.net 24 points 11 months ago

Me staring at these people and thinking about all of the properly queer artists there are

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[-] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 34 points 11 months ago

I can't explain it completely, but I can say she gives way more convoluted and involved biographical information in her songs than most musicians and encourages her followers to be parasocial, and seemingly this interest in The Lore has lead her more obsessive fans to spread interpretations of her songs that are absolutely ridiculous.

[-] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 23 points 11 months ago

Taylor Swift is the Dark Souls of pop

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[-] Parsani@hexbear.net 56 points 11 months ago
[-] the_itsb@hexbear.net 29 points 11 months ago

I thought the point of the comm was silly memeing and critical support for Taylor's status as an iconic lightning rod for chud anger - does this (not new) information obviate the need the community is fulfilling?

[-] Tachanka@hexbear.net 45 points 11 months ago

Taylor's status as an iconic lightning rod for chud anger

Hillary Clinton is also that. c/Hilldawg when? planet-hillary

[-] Raebxeh@hexbear.net 27 points 11 months ago

This website’s history with Hillary-based comms is better left untouched

[-] a_blanqui_slate@hexbear.net 26 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The fire rises.

[-] GaveUp@hexbear.net 49 points 11 months ago

Taylor's music is not bad enough to catch this much hate in the comments lmao

Fucking contrarians

We get it, you only listen to good pop like Bjork 🙄

[-] ikilledtheradiostar@hexbear.net 38 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Its not possible for Taylor swift music to be bad. Hundred's of talented people work on its production. Not liking slop from because it came from a giant slop machine is a perfectly valid response.

I love eating tastycakes. I am also revolted by tastycakes.

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[-] RyanGosling@hexbear.net 23 points 11 months ago

Half of the people are 40+ whose entire personality is “not understanding the youth.” The other half are 18+ whose entire personality is “I hate when girls scream and get excited. They are icky”

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[-] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 49 points 11 months ago

My complete lifelong indifference to Taylor Swift discourse has never felt like such a boon

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[-] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 40 points 11 months ago

I mean, it's the rare exemption that someone who isn't already privileged to some degree manages to attain fame and fortune

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[-] emizeko@hexbear.net 36 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I thought this was common knowledge... this info was going around in like 2008

[-] NoYouLogOff@hexbear.net 28 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The eldest zoomers would have been starting middle school in 2008, there's probably a substantial amount of people here that were young and not as online when the info started circulating, and spreading the info fell off as it becomes old news.

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[-] vexikron@lemmy.zip 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Most current and former twitter users probably still do not understand that Musk was actually sued into buying Twitter after he tried to back out of his decision to buy it something like 72 hours prior.

I basically have a theory that your brain just molds itself to the format of the social media website you use the most, so by that, we have a lot of Twitter users (former, more so than current, at this point) who more or less forgot how to have or hear an idea that takes more than about 5 seconds to think about.

[-] emizeko@hexbear.net 29 points 11 months ago

that video of him carrying a sink into the Twitter lobby has aged real well

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[-] 2Password2Remember@hexbear.net 34 points 11 months ago

makes sense, her music is fucking dogshit. so boring

Death to America

[-] Notcontenttobequiet@hexbear.net 32 points 11 months ago

Trying to keep this as vague as possible: family member on the west coast runs music events at a bar and has for a long time. Taylor Swift played said event when she was really young and she absolutely bombed. Apparently the owner of the bar (not my family member) was giving her advice on how what to do to succeed. This drunk hippie probably gave her family some wild ideas and they absolutely ran with them!

[-] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 31 points 11 months ago

I agree she isn't organicly famous but I also don't really care or believe that most people in our society got where they did on merit

[-] anonochronomus@hexbear.net 33 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Correct. Actual talented musicians struggle their entire lives and often die very early from the stress related to working like a normal person and also being out late playing in clubs. Wes Montgomery was a welder throughout his entire career, he died at 45. Wes had more talent in his right thumb than t swift has all over.

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[-] TupamarosShakur@hexbear.net 30 points 11 months ago

look, the faildaughters need representation too

[-] chickentendrils@hexbear.net 26 points 11 months ago
[-] Llituro@hexbear.net 24 points 11 months ago

i'm pretty sure the recent alexander avila video that was posted here that talked about swift covered this actually.

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this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
203 points (100.0% liked)

chapotraphouse

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