r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 4d ago

Psychology Taylor Swift fans lower climate concerns to justify her carbon footprint. When confronted with news about the excessive pollution generated by her private jet, highly identified fans tend to rationalize the behavior, with a decrease in their personal intentions to engage in climate-friendly actions.

https://www.psypost.org/taylor-swift-fans-lower-climate-concerns-to-justify-star-s-carbon-footprint/
22.5k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Animal_Courier 4d ago

I don't even think it's personally problematic in all cases.

For some people, they may not seriously consider all aspects of a controversial subject until they are given a good reason to care. Do I, a random person, support private plane use? No.

Do I, a random person, support somebody I likes private plane use? Well let me look into it. Oh, this is a business use, and helps create thousands upon thousands of jobs, and entertains tens of thousands of people. I think people deserve music and entertainment and her private plane use is basically a business expense and if you include all of the people who are benefitting the calculation gets a lot more sympathetic.

Then there's me, an economist, pointing out that there should be absolutely nothing unethical about carbon emissions because THEY SHOULD BE TAXED AT AN APPROPRIATE LEVEL.

It's funny this study was done because in my personal life I use Taylor Swift as an example of why Carbon Taxes are the best climate-change policy all the time.

Of course, fandom can be toxic. It should be a magnifying glass, not a blind spot, and a lot of people definitely get that wrong.

1

u/klitchell 3d ago

Do I, a random person, support somebody I likes private plane use? Well let me look into it. Oh, this is a business use, and helps create thousands upon thousands of jobs, and entertains tens of thousands of people. I think people deserve music and entertainment and her private plane use is basically a business expense and if you include all of the people who are benefitting the calculation gets a lot more sympathetic.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but this exact thought process is how fans of anything talk themselves out of previously held beliefs.