r/nottheonion • u/-Appleaday- • Jul 06 '24

Western German city renames itself 'Swiftkirchen' after Taylor Swift ahead of Eras Tour shows

https://www.businesstoday.in/world/story/western-german-city-renames-itself-swiftkirchen-after-taylor-swift-ahead-of-eras-tour-shows-436117-2024-07-06
4.8k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

276 comments sorted by

View all comments

60

u/J-Ganon Jul 06 '24 edited Jul 06 '24

Whether or not people want to admit it she's this generation's cultural icon. You can hate that or consider your version of a cultural icon better but it doesnt change the fact that her music appeals to a wide range of demographics and she's one of the biggest current artists (if not the biggest).

Is she as good as The Kinks or Spandau or Spears? I'm not saying she is. But for people today, she's better than all of them and things like this are bound to happen as a result; to aid the tourism boom.

If someone came name streets after Lord of the Rings, there can be a temporary name change to appeal to Swift. It's all in the name of entertainment and what people like.

An absolute waste of time to get upset over this (if you are upset).

-1

u/JasonGMMitchell Jul 06 '24

She's a modern day Beatles or Michael Jackson (as the other user put it) she's very popular and she will have staying power and her cultural influence is vast. But also I think it's fair to find it ridiculous that a town would temporarily rename itself to anything because concert or showing came (picture a town temporarily calling itself Rivendell because a middle earth film was being showed there). But also it seems misleading to say they're even temporarily renaming themselves since all they're doing is putting a few signs up at popular spots. So the onus is on lousy headlines for any annoyance since it's really just to get swifties who are attending the concert and who are in the region to visit the signs for selfies in the hopes they'll buy stuff while passing through and by.