“Lavender Haze” in the Airways

Introduction Taylor Swift has dominated global press in recent years through the success of her Eras Tour, her use of authenticity in branding (Khanal 234), and her choreographed engagement with fans (Bengtsson and Edlom 65). Swift has also faced criticism regarding carbon emissions, for her use of a private jet in service of her career (Olmstead 652; Hammons 154). Said criticism is often made through the lens of anti-fandom, detraction based on hate for or trivialisation of a celebrity or media property (Duffy et al. 8). While this arguably follows a long tradition of activists using the issue-attention cycle (Downs) to bring awareness to a cause, awareness alone as a tactic has been shown to be ineffective in sustaining social change, including with ecoactivism specifically (McDonald 54-55). Further, anti-fandom activism relies on outgroup hate, which has been shown to be less effective than the tactics of in-group love (Nettasinghe et al. 567) used by fan activists. While Swift’s carbon footprint is large (Haneman 210) and private jets are a broader systemic problem in the battle to reduce global carbon emissions (Olmstead 667), to critique Swift’s emissions as an individual also misses how she is functionally an enterprise (Zheng 1874) within an industry that has a broader impact on climate change (Hammons 174; Thomson et al. 13). Anti-fan criticism of Swift ignores her status as a brand, often generating media attention rather than holding Swift and other celebrities accountable or driving other direct action towards curtailing climate change. This article seeks to explore anti-fan action against Taylor Swift as a tactic of ecoactivism and ecopolitics, as well as arguing for a more nuanced approach which seeks to mobilise an already active pro-Swift fandom towards more sustainable, effective collective action. Contextualising Taylor Swift Critiques of Swift’s jet use have often compared her to the average individual, non-celebrity, emitter (Haneman 210) or lampooned said use as though she is simply running coffee errands (Hammons 154). Swift as a public figure, however, is more an enterprise than an individual. While the exact number of people employed by Swift is not publicly known, the singer/songwriter operates as the umbrella enterprise for multiple companies including 13 Management (her core management team) and Taylor Swift Tours (band, backup singers and dancers, drivers, and other crew). Swift additionally employs a marketing and public relations firm as well as regularly holding contracts for merchandising, music production, hair, makeup, and more. While Swift’s jet emissions in 2022 were estimated to have a social cost of over $400,000 (Haneman 210), her Eras Tour the following two years was responsible for restoring some economic markets to pre-pandemic levels or higher (Hoff et al.; Sidebottom 2), adding $4.3 billion to the United States gross domestic product alone (Burman). The economic effect on cities that hosted the Eras Tour was so consistent and prolific that it garnered the name “Swiftonomics” (Khanal 234). Meanwhile, the tour itself became the highest grossing music tour of all time, netting $2,077,618,725 in ticket sales and roughly $400 million in merchandise sales (Savage). For comparison, Swift’s ticket sales from 17 March 2023 to 8 December 2024 were roughly equivalent to Boeing’s record-setting 2021 fiscal e-commerce sales (Boeing). This is not to say that her earnings or economic contributions bar her from criticism, but rather that anti-fan eco-based criticisms draw on false equivalencies. If Swift is to be a target of ecoactivism, she should be targeted as a multinational enterprise and prioritised as a target based on her emissions in comparison to other industrial carbon emitters, with the same considerations given to social cost vs. social gain analyses. Touring, however, is not the only business Swift engages in. She of course writes, records, and sells music, but she also engages in the business of sustaining her fandom through the deliberate cultivation of a parasocial relationship with her fans. Swift accomplishes this through a very specific type of branding and marketing which relies on a narrative of authenticity (Khanal 234) and choreographed engagement with fans (Bengtsson and Edlom 65). Whether it is her expression of her values or the demeanor with which she carries herself during public controversies (Karulkar et al. 1), the fannish aura surrounding Swift is one of shared knowing. It is a parasocial relationship in which fans are meant to feel akin to friends of Swift and thus feel inclined to support Swift beyond her music. While a parasocial relationship is inherently lopsided (no one outside of Swift’s inner circle is really able to know her), Swift’s utilisation of her fans’ support is more interactive than many other parasocial relationships. Fans, for example, experience some sense of actually knowing Swift through the personal vulnerabilities she chooses to share in her song lyrics, and fans see said lyrics as authentic (Khanal 231). Likewise, Swift has been said to have cultivated a sense of “nostalgic girlhood” which evokes a sense of shared space, one which mimics slumber parties and shared bedrooms (Morris 90-91). Swift also sometimes interacts directly with fans on a more personal level, attending weddings, sending gifts, and covering tuition payments (Khanal 234). She even once invited fans to a dance party in her home wherein she served them homemade cookies (Khanal 234). Since her brand is based around authenticity, any meaningful public critique of Swift, ecoactivist or otherwise, would need to effectively attack her authenticity. This tactic was very nearly successful during a public feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in 2016 which attempted to paint Swift as a liar and a snake over an edited conversation between the three about how Swift was portrayed in one of West’s songs. However, through fan engagement with transmedia campaigns, Swift was ultimately able to regain control of the public narrative about herself (Zafina and Sinha 12). She even used the imagery of the snake, and her jet, to satirise her critics (“Look What You Made Me Do”). This was before ecoactivist criticism, when the jet was being used by anti-fans as a symbol of Swift’s wealth (Lang), in an effort to delegitimise her authenticity and imply she was greedy and out of touch with her fan-base. Following the 2016 feud and eventual comeback, fans who remained loyal throughout, as well as those who eventually sided with Swift’s version of events, became protective of Swift’s reputation moving forward (Zafina and Sinha 12). This loyalty was then later extended to another public feud she had with Big Machine Records, specifically with investor and record executive Scooter Braun, over the sale of the master recordings of her first six studio albums. After attempting to purchase the masters herself, unsuccessfully, Swift chose to take a bold gamble by re-recording four of the six albums in an effort to regain the rights to her own, original work. Fans were so supportive of Swift’s rereleasing her own music, through streaming and album sales, that Swift changed the industry standard for musician ownership and reclamation of sold work, especially for young, women artists (Neal 84-85). To subvert brand loyalty, anti-fan ecoactivism targeting Swift would thus only be effective if it could rebrand Swift as betraying the public and her fans, and she never promised lower carbon emissions to either. Carbon Emissions Between January and August 2022, Swift’s private plane was at the top of the charts, so to speak, for its carbon footprint, totaling 170 flights and 8,293 tons of emissions (Godlewski 3). However, Swift’s plane has not stayed in even the top 15 celebrity jets responsible for the most carbon emissions as of 2024 (Ring). This is not necessarily due to increased responsibility on Swift’s part, though it should be noted that, like other businesses, Swift’s public relations team has shared that she purchases carbon offsets as part of her air travel and purchases more than double what is recommended based on her mileage (O’Malley). Carbon offsets, or funding for projects which otherwise reduce emissions, are arguably themselves not a viable long-term tactic in addressing climate change, due to complexities and variabilities in how they are used and reported (de Mello 164-166), but this ultimately points to the fact that emissions by private jets are a broader systemic issue (Godlewski 1-2), and not a Swift-specific one. Even larger companies with reduced overall carbon emissions following public criticism, like Nike, are seeing increases in emissions due to private jet use (Davis), though the entertainment industry is responsible for some of the highest use of private planes (Hammons 174). The rise in private jet use and associated carbon emissions is also largely a problem of legislative failures to adequately tax and otherwise restrict their use (Godlewski 26). Additionally, use of private planes by the ultra-famous is somewhat necessitated by inadequate safety measures to protect against harassment by paparazzi and stalkers, without which private planes are the safest form of travel, and frequently the most efficient for high-profile individuals (Olmstead 663-665). This is not to say that individual safety trumps the public good of reduced carbon emission, but to say that Swift’s jet use is multifactorial and more complex than simply asking that she use the jet less. It is also worth noting that, while touring, recording, and promoting within the music industry currently relies heavily on ecologically inefficient private planes for top-billed artists like Swift, private jets are not responsible for the majority of carbon emissions associated with music production, celebrity, and fandom. Streaming is responsible for significantly more ecological impacts (Hammons 174)