Taylor Swift Furiously Denies Neo-Nazi Group’s Claim She Is Their Aryan Goddess
Taylor Swift is the cool, classy icon who doesn’t play into gossipy feuds and celebrity rumors. This time, however, the gossips have her attention. They’re calling her a Neo-Nazi Aryan goddess, and Taylor furiously denies the label. Fox News reports that Andre Anglin, the writer of the white supremacist blog the Daily Stormer, recently spoke out about Ms. Swift.
“Firstly, Taylor Swift is a pure Aryan goddess, like something out of classical Greek poetry. Athena reborn. That’s the most important thing. It is also an established fact that Taylor Swift is secretly a Nazi and is simply waiting for the time when Donald Trump makes it safe for her to come out and announce her Aryan agenda to the world. Probably, she will be betrothed to Trump’s son, and they will be crowned American royalty.”
The problem with that statement is that Taylor Swift never said any of those things, her reps claim, nor did she ever desire to be anyone’s Aryan goddess. Some have speculated that Taylor Swift was a natural choice for the Neo-Nazis who were looking for their next Aryan poster child. The tall, leggy blond has fair skin and hair and blue eyes, the ideal picture of Hitler’s perfect population. Only Swift never asked to be included in their population, nor did she ask to even be associated with them.
Neo-Nazis consider Taylor Swift their “Aryan goddess”: https://t.co/J3uBYEwoAe pic.twitter.com/2TtYmStJv6
— Slate (@Slate) May 25, 2016
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when all the speculation on her connection to anything Neo-Nazi related began, but some reports have linked the movement to some memes on Pinterest. The Pinterest user’s name is Emily Pattinson, and she began posting pics of Taylor Swift with quotes on them in 2013. She overlaid the quotes over images of Taylor with quotation marks, leading viewers to believe Swift said those things.
As it turns out, however, they weren’t spoken by the singer at all, but rather Adolf Hitler. Pattinson initially created the memes to parody the modern meme culture of posting inspirational quotes over images of celebrities. But then the memes took off, gaining more popularity by the day. Had they remained an inside joke among teens, they might have been harmless. But they didn’t. Adult users caught wind of the trend, and some of those adults were actual Neo-Nazis who took them to heart and not only accepted them but celebrated them and circulated them even more widely.
someone: taylor swift is so Great!!
me: but okay u do realize she took a pic w a guy w a swastika on his shirt right. right.— evan | ó × ò )@ out of town (@lostflarestar) February 4, 2015
Long memories aside, there is plenty of new ammunition for those who wish to disparage Taylor Swift. The Pinterest posts of the memes with Hitler quotes have been widely circulated. So much so, in fact, Fox News reports, that the singer’s lawyer sent a letter to Pinterest asking them to remove the offensive posts.
“The association of Ms. Swift with Adolf Hitler undisputedly is ‘harmful,’ ‘abusive,’ ‘ethnically offensive,’ ‘humiliating to other people,’ ‘libelous,’ and no doubt ‘otherwise objectionable.” The lawyer went on to say that regardless of her being a public figure or that it’s merely satire, public figures have rights. Association with certain historical figures such as Adolf Hitler are ‘lightning rods for emotional and negative reaction.'”
Regardless of Pinterest posts or social media comments that say otherwise, Taylor Swift furiously denies any claim by neo-Nazis that she is their Aryan goddess.
[Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images]
