Everything Has an Argument

    In high school I took an AP English language and composition class and the one thing that my teacher always told us was that, “everything has an argument.” That class had some of the most interesting discussions about the most controversial topics. Even if the point of something is to be neutral or does not have a purpose, that still makes a point about the lack of care or the desire to not cause any disturbances. Both the Frankfurt and Birmingham Schools of Thought agree that pop culture has messages that can impact the general public, but they differ on how people respond to those messages, or arguments. The Frankfurt School tended to be more of the opinion that these arguments were spoon-fed to the starving masses who were easily influenced. On the other hand, the Birmingham School believed that the public could discern the information and could evaluate based on it. 

    The queen of hiding messages and secrets in pop culture, at the present, is Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is an internationally renowned singer, songwriter, and business woman. She is known for hiding Easter eggs, hidden items in media that refer to something else, throughout all platforms and social appearances. Swift started this through hiding words in the cd liners of her songs by capitalizing certain letters to spell out messages. This brought her fans, or Swifties, a lot of joy and excitement, so much so that Swift started doing this on a much grander scale. Sometimes the Easter eggs are more subtle, such as the color schemes of the outfits she wears out to public events, or they can get more complicated. These more complicated Easter eggs are not always confirmed by the 34 year old singer, but they can be pretty wild. It has been alleged that the purple color of the electronic wristbands that concert attendees wore hinted towards the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). Based upon how the Swifties have responded towards Swift’s hidden messages and the many different arguments that they make, I would consider this as evidence supporting the Birmingham School’s thoughts towards pop culture. The consumption of Swift’s corner of pop culture does not mean that you are inherently easily swayed by every little piece of information you learn. Personally, I know two people who used to be bigger fans of hers, but once All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) dropped they were not as big of fans. This was due to the song being about a relationship Swift had over ten years ago with Jake Gyllenhaal (Swift tends to not confirm which songs are about which people, but the timelines do line up and she is not denying it). Gyllenhaal received a new wave of hate on the internet due to the release of the song and the people who I know considered it as waking the long dormant breakup issues when it was not necessary. Lots of people have bad breakups, but not many receive massive amounts of online hate for a breakup that happened over ten years ago. When people can have subtle and significant changes of opinions of a celebrity without being led by the masses it shows a level of critical thinking that the Birmingham School would be proud of.