Taylor Swifts "You Need to Calm Down"

     On July 17th, Taylor Swift released the music video for her new song "You Need to Calm Down" on YouTube. Since then it has received equal parts of love and hate, for multiple reasons. The song largely has to do with telling people to calm down and take a step back AND the song and music video focus largely on homophobes as the people being addressed. Many people are upset, saying that the LGBTQ+ community doesn't need a straight white woman to make a "gay anthem" or represent the community, especially during pride month. However, Swift has one of the largest audiences of our day and has been a long time ally of the LGBTQ+ community, so by speaking out in this positive, non-hateful, way she can really help make a difference. Yes she is making a ton of money off of this, and yes it's giving her upcoming album a lot of publicity, but it's still doing more good than bad. Also, it's not that different than how thousands of companies capitalize off of pride month every year. They throw rainbows on everything but don't donate money to LGBT+  causes or give their outspoken alliance. They let the grey area cover their butts from homophobic people's anger over LGBT+ products. So, by being this blunt and outspoken, Swift is both losing fans and receiving a lot of backlash over this song.

I believe that this is a step in the right direction. Swift is an ally with a lot of influence. Should she be the center of the gay community? No, definitely not. But can she be a good ally and help make a difference? Yes, absolutely.