Why should we care what celebrities like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish say about Palestine?

Over the last six months, young, digitally active people have been using any means necessary to show their support for victims of Israel’s bombardment on Gaza, from filter fundraising to online takeovers. Many have also adopted the decades-old Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), and anti-colonial movements on behalf of the Palestinians. 

While they’re implementing standard algorithm-gaming techniques to keep Palestine trending, some have co-opted the movement, using it to validate which celebrities they stan and which should be recipients of a cancellation barrage in the name of human rights. 

Examples of unhelpful fan response to the bombardment of Palestine include Swifties claiming ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn’s Artists for Ceasefire pin is a performative response to the recently released Tortured Poet’s Department, as well as criticisms of Billie Eilish for shopping at Starbucks, a grassroots boycott target unsanctioned by the BDS movement. Just last month, Twitter users were using the term “divest” to call for the firing of Scooter Braun from entertainment company HYBE, reportedly because of his pro-Israel ties. 

Meanwhile, as fandom’s “keyboard warriors” take to the timeline, students across the country are taking over their campuses and demanding their universities divest from Israel. Student unions are galvanizing for widespread protests and possibly strikes. Celebrities, for the most part, stay mum. TikTok, a hub for information sharing, faces a government ban if its Chinese parent company doesn’t divest from the platform in the next year.

Can we turn the fandom fervor online into boots-on-the-ground activism? Why are we so obsessed with what celebrities think of social movements? 

Mashable culture and tech reporter Elena Cavender and social good reporter Chase DiBenedetto discuss how celebrity obsession and activism are frequently at odds.

The fan’s playbook

Elena: While the layperson might not be well versed in BDS, they’re likely experts in cancel culture. For many, the knee-jerk reaction to social movements online is to direct their energy toward celebrities rather than organizing. 

Chase: Yep, and we’ve noticed it a lot more recently. It’s also made us question if that’s actually doing any good.

You often see fans and celebrity-obsessed users fall into the same patterns for global movements as they do for stan wars — strategies to get your favs trending online or on the charts, tabloid tactics to disparage a celeb’s competition with old receipts, and other engagement strategies are all fair game to fight for the oppressed. But I think we have to remember the goal here. Is it real change or to clock who is on the “right side?”

Elena: In some cases, fans take the language of activists like “boycotting” and apply it to individual celebrities rather than businesses investing in Israel or systems that uphold colonialism. This behavior obscures the meaning and aims of boycotting and is ultimately unproductive. 

With every movie release recently, I’ve seen TikToks shame other users for watching the film. For example, in one video, a creator says, “I thought we were boycotting Dune, so why do I see people on my timeline with Free Palestine in their bio…talking about seeing Dune this weekend.” The creator and others pointed to the lack of Middle Eastern actors in the franchise and Timothée Chalamet’s Hamas joke on Saturday Night Live as reasons to boycott the film.

Chase: Other celeb boycotts included those against Taylor Swift, who notoriously remains silent on politics. After releasing an album titled The Tortured Poets Department amid the assault on Palestinian academics and artists, like poet Refaat Alareer, some Twitter users were furious with the timeline.

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Elena: This kind of discourse, while well-intended, makes boycott targets unclear and could potentially alienate people who want to be involved in the movement. 

“Hot or Not” activism 

Chase: Not to keep bringing this up, but it’s also a worrisome focus given the parasocial nature of the internet. People so easily become obsessed, like tunnel vision for a celebrity’s posts, likes, and associations rather than the real world. That passion is often turned into internal fandom wars. This happened when K-pop fans asked each other to boycott HYBE, the entertainment company behind BTS.

Elena: Our obsession with celebrities often brings out our worst tendencies online. Just as you might praise an actor you love for their performance in a movie, you might also praise their political views.

It’s natural to crave validation from those we admire or are attracted to, especially when they support causes that are important to us. When a celebrity you love speaks out in favor of Palestine, it can feel validating — it’s like they’re endorsing not just the cause but also your support for it, affirming the online presence you’ve dedicated to them.

However, this behavior also reflects a problematic tendency to equate beauty with morality. The hotter a celebrity is, the more we want to confirm their stance and the more we seek to praise them. But advocating for Palestine cannot begin and end with who you think is beautiful.  

Chase: Or talented!

Elena: There are so many posts about “Zionists being ugly,” especially about Amy Schumer, who spread vile misinformation about Gazans being “rapists.” These surface-level critiques are an unproductive way to combat hate speech. In a way, they are weaponizing a social movement to campaign against a celebrity they already dislike. 

Chase: I also worry about the impulse to apply the same standards we hold for celebrities with considerable platforms to individuals. There’s a difference between someone willingly supporting or staying silent about oppressive regimes and someone who happens to own and use a Starbucks mug. It also relies on punishing people who don’t participate in the amorphous boycotts floating around the internet rather than organizing everyone toward a common goal.

E-spaces can’t rival encampments

Chase: Fandoms can bog themselves down in this thinking. While fan feuds take over Twitter and people debate on TikTok, armed police forces are arresting students who have created liberated zones, academics are being fired, and student journalists are subject to attack. And all of this takes up space from what’s happening to Palestinians in the news cycle, including how celebrities engage. 

Elena: For these hyper-online individuals who exist in fandom spaces, their worldview is so narrow that they can only negotiate these issues via celebrity. Everyone needs to start somewhere, but it’s essential that these people who claim to care so deeply about a cause move beyond a celebrity proxy movement.

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Chase: You see this with the months-long confusion about whether or not people should be boycotting Starbucks. Even ignoring the complexities of the company’s poor labor practices, many supporters still fundamentally misunderstand what a targeted boycott means. 

That’s startling to me, mainly because this mass global movement for Palestine has historically utilized boycotts and divestment as essential tools in its fight. 

Elena: We’re taking these terms out of context and using them in an individualistic nature when they should be collective terms. 

Chase: Not long after the first calls to boycott Starbucks (initially a short-term response to the company’s treatment of its pro-Palestine union, Starbucks Workers United), users had began an internet-wide survey of brands—and celebrities—that might have ties to Israel. 

For a minute, there was great collective energy. But without any guidance, it became a copout for users to merely signal support without taking more significant action. 

Elena: The grassroots Starbucks boycott has captured the online imagination so much that simply holding a Starbucks cup can negate anything else you’ve done in support of Palestine. It’s become a symbol of anti-Palestinian sentiment or indifference. 

For example, Eilish was one of 13 people who wore an Artists for Ceasefire pin at the 2024 Oscars. The next day, someone “caught” her buying a Starbucks drink, and immediately, fans denounced her as a fraud and performative supporter. So few celebrities have been outspoken about Palestine, and instead of embracing her as an ally, they immediately tore her down. 

Chase: Now, the boycott rhetoric has ballooned too far, often overpowering the actual demands of groups like BDS, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and Students for Justice in Palestine. Movement literacy is even more critical with the current student protest movement and encampments as these groups call for divestment — an entirely different strategy from boycott efforts intended to get immensely funded universities to sever their financial ties to the Israeli government.

Elena: There have been moments in the past where we have productively harnessed fan and celebrity-obsessed energy, like when BTS fans fundraised over a million dollars for Black Lives Matter. But thus far, since Oct. 7, we haven’t seen that kind of action instigated by fans. 

Chase: Totally. Social media has revolutionized the ability of movements to communicate, organize, and combat misinformation. We’ve seen this with the efforts of student journalists and supporters across the country who are using livestreams and live updates to document police brutality. 

Shado Magazine contributors Kareen Haddad and Hayfaa Chalabi describe a new “Instafada” that’s taken over Palestinian organizing, relying less on news and more on non-traditional media to share information and humanize Palestinians. 

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Elena: But, similar to how FilmUpdates and Letterboxd have changed how online users engage with art, social media “news” accounts have changed how people engage with organizing. They focus attention haphazardly, and users often get stuck in the details.

Chase: Definitely. As you mentioned, activists have to reframe the naturally individualistic impulses of social media. Charlotte Rose and Javie Huxley write about this and the idea of collective care, also for Shado Magazine: “Instead of gatekeeping groups and struggles, we need to bring more people in with warmth and guidance that are readily available to hold us,” they write. “In this framework, solidarity with Palestine – or with any form of systemic oppression – will never be just putting down the Starbucks cup or going to a gig for Gaza, but instead must be truly anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and revolutionary to its core.”

What does fame have to offer?

Elena: Celebrities can be helpful. At this moment, a collective of British film and television workers launched Cinema for Gaza, an auction raising money for humanitarian relief in Gaza. It relied on actors like Tilda Swinton, Josh O’Connor, Ramy Youssef, and Paul Mescal donating their time and memorabilia to raise funds. It ultimately raised over $316,000 for Medical Aid for Palestine. 

Additionally, celebrities have so much attention that they can redirect some toward Palestine. The Artists for Ceasefire pins are one example of this. Others are Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer, using his acceptance speech for Greatest International Feature Film at the 2024 Oscars to draw parallels between his movie and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and musicians such as SZA, Macklemore, and Saint Levant calling for a Free Palestine in front of sold-out stadiums. 

Ultimately, they can serve to expose the systems of distraction within their own industries. Like Irish actress and Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan said in an interview with Teen Vogue, “You do get told, ‘You won’t get work,’ ‘You won’t do this.’ But I also think, deep down, if you know that you’re coming from a place of ‘I don’t want any innocent people to suffer,’ then I’m not worried about people’s reactions.”

They can also actively participate in the movement to spotlight attention on the treatment of protestors, like when Hunter Schafer got arrested with Jewish Voices for Peace. 

Chase: Hollywood has often been a source of funding for causes, mainly humanitarian ones. That’s why NGOs and organizations like the United Nations had began incorporating celebrity ambassador programs in the last few decades to gain notoriety. Celebrity ambassadors are part of the growing attention economy and occupy elite spaces. They add social capital to unknown movements. 

The question becomes: What should we do when celebrities have used up all that they can offer? 

Art for the movement not for profit

Chase: Social media’s tendency toward celebrity idolatry and a performance of care is dangerous. Don’t forget: Hollywood sells unattainability and dehumanization. 

Celebrity is also not the same as art. Art is essential to a movement’s impact, attention-gathering, and community. It’s kind of a rectangular versus square argument. We need artists, but I don’t think we necessarily need celebs. 

Elena: And immersing yourself in celebrity culture is a form of escaping our radicalizing reality. 

Chase: The Met Gala — the pinnacle of celeb events rife with its own conflicts — is happening tonight. A few blocks away, Columbia students have been fighting their administrators for the right to protest peacefully. It’s up to those online to choose where to focus their eyes.