Juno News - Is this mass formation psychosis？

00:00:00.000 Am I the only person that finds the craze surrounding Taylor Swift to be completely

00:00:11.960 bizarre and not organic at all? Now for those of you that are living under a rock, Taylor Swift

00:00:17.140 is currently holding a series of shows in Toronto and it seems to be the only thing Canadian media

00:00:23.240 are able to actually talk about right now. It is dominating life in the city. Politicians,

00:00:29.600 the police, the media, the institutions in this country are pushing Taylor Swift and pushing this

00:00:35.820 popularity at a rate and at a pace that is completely strange to me. I find it very bizarre.

00:00:43.600 The city has quite literally come to a standstill for Taylor Swift because the police decided to

00:00:48.680 provide a motorcade for Taylor Swift to drive down the Don Valley Parkway in the middle of rush hour.

00:00:55.180 Not only that, for the past several days the Toronto police have essentially been providing

00:01:00.600 free advertising for Taylor Swift. They won't be able to stop you from having your car jacked but

00:01:06.580 they will stop you on rush hour to drive Taylor Swift into the Rogers Centre. Furthermore, the city of

00:01:13.460 Toronto actually renamed City Streets to Taylor Swift Way during her concert. Oh and get this,

00:01:20.440 they actually were able to forcibly remove homeless encampments near the Rogers Centre during the

00:01:26.360 Taylor Swift concert just so that all the people that would be coming into the city don't have to

00:01:30.660 see the homeless people who live outside the Rogers Centre every day. They've put them up in hotel

00:01:34.960 rooms at our expense and we'll bring them back as soon as all the Swifties leave town. Surely I'm not 1.00

00:01:40.960 the only person who thinks all of this is just a little bit strange for a pop singer who, let's be

00:01:45.620 honest, does not really produce top-tier music. Alright, before we get into the show be sure to

00:01:50.740 drop a like on this video, help us out by subscribing to the True North YouTube channel and the common

00:01:55.220 question for the episode is this, why are Canada's institutions pushing Taylor Swift so much? Let me

00:02:02.080 know your answer in the comments below and let's get into it. I'm afraid I have to show you these clips

00:02:07.920 you're about to see in order to bolster my argument so my apologies in advance but this bizarre and very

00:02:15.640 strange Taylor Swift craze begins back in July, begins several months ago when the city decided to

00:02:24.520 rename City Streets to Taylor Swift Way and just look at this video from a grown adult, a grown woman

00:02:34.720 who represents people in this city, a politician speaking in the City Hall chambers announcing this

00:02:42.000 motion to rename City Streets. Firstly, I want to say welcome to Tayloronto and it's been a long time

00:02:49.100 coming and we are ready for it. As we know all too well, Taylor Swift is coming to Toronto for a fortnight

00:02:55.480 for the Eros tour. Swifties will shake it off at six concerts this November and it is an opportunity

00:03:02.580 for Toronto to show off our great reputation and our place in this world. Uh, I'm guessing all of

00:03:10.440 those were references to Taylor Swift songs because this woman is behaving like a child but she's 1.00

00:03:16.120 actually supposed to be the deputy mayor of Toronto. After Taylor Swift makes sparks fly and the whole

00:03:22.340 place shimmer at the Rogers Centre in a concert that Swifties will remember forever and always, fans will

00:03:28.440 need to calm down and walk along the honorary Taylor Swift way to have their photos taken with the

00:03:33.720 Toronto signs seven letters lit red in her honour. It's our way to show Taylor she's the one we've been

00:03:40.440 waiting for, that she has brought us much happiness and that we will love her ever more. And the motion

00:03:46.120 also asked the general manager to report back on the Swiftonomics of the event.

00:03:50.300 The Swiftonomics. The Swiftonomics of the event. We're going to have the city general manager waste their time 0.94

00:03:58.380 to produce a report about the Swiftonomics of the Taylor Swift concert. Including the tax revenues that

00:04:04.940 are generated to the municipal, provincial and federal government. I have a shirt to welcome her to

00:04:11.900 well that says welcome to Toronto A and I'm hoping she'll be inspired and wear this during the song 22

00:04:18.700 because she always changes the logo on her shirt. This is not like a normal person. Can we all agree

00:04:25.740 with that? This person has been, you know, swept up in some social contagion regarding Taylor Swift.

00:04:33.500 Clearly this is not the behaviour of an adult. And my favourite part about this video is the, is the,

00:04:39.340 the mayor's staff member in the background. This guy in the back corner who just, his reaction gets

00:04:44.860 progressively worse as this woman's swifty screed continues to get worse. It's just unbelievable 1.00

00:04:53.420 stuff. Pathetic really. And sure enough, you know, that was, that was back in July. So we knew the 1.00

00:04:57.820 Taylor Swift concert was going to be a complete disaster and cringe fest for everyone living in

00:05:03.180 this city who has to put up with this nonsense. But then on the first night of the concert, we learned

00:05:09.180 actually that the eastbound DVP at rush hour, one of the busiest highways in North America was going

00:05:16.380 to be shut down for Taylor Swift. It was going to be shut down just so Taylor Swift could get to her 1.00

00:05:21.180 bloody concert. And the Toronto police gave her a motorcade. Taylor Swift happens to be the world's 0.81

00:05:26.380 largest celebrity polluter. And it's pretty clear why not only does she fly around the world in her 1.00

00:05:31.820 private jet, but she also shuts down the DVP at rush hour so she can get to her concert on time.

00:05:37.740 But leading up to the concert, we learned that the city of Toronto actually can clear homeless

00:05:43.340 encampments when it wants to. It can clear up the homeless people when it wants to on behalf of

00:05:49.980 Taylor Swift, a foreign entertainer, not of course, for the people of Toronto who have to put up with 1.00

00:05:56.140 it every single day. The city of Toronto cleared out homeless encampments around the Rogers Centre

00:06:01.100 and put the homeless people up in hotel rooms for the duration of the concert series. And they'll be 0.68

00:06:05.740 left back out to go right back on the street. Hey, isn't that exactly what Gavin Newsom did in

00:06:10.460 California for Xi Jinping? He cleared out the homeless people in San Francisco so Xi Jinping's 0.89

00:06:16.620 motorcade could drive through San Francisco and not see all the homeless people. So we're giving Taylor

00:06:21.900 Swift the Xi Jinping treatment. Okay. Okay, totally normal. Totally normal stuff, right? Look, it just

00:06:28.300 keeps getting more bizarre. During the actual concert series, the Toronto police were basically putting

00:06:35.180 on a show. Their horses, which are ceremonial. I'll give them that. They're not really used to enforce

00:06:41.020 the law. The horses were wearing these friendship bracelets. That's not really that important. And

00:06:45.740 you know, it is what it is. But what was very strange was that they kept tweeting about the Toronto

00:06:52.860 police chief handing out friendship bracelets at the concert. What is the police chief doing

00:06:58.540 at a Taylor Swift concert when violent crime in the city is out of control? When people are having

00:07:04.300 their homes broken into and cars broken into? Like I said before, they're not going to stop you from

00:07:09.180 having your home broken into by burglars, but they are going to stop you on the DVP in rush hour.

00:07:14.300 Thank God we know that Myron Demke is doing a good job promoting the Toronto police at the Taylor Swift

00:07:20.940 concert for a bunch of 16 and 17 year old girls. Like, is this normal that on a flight from Edmonton

00:07:28.780 to Toronto, a flight full of Taylor Swift fans, the flight attendant plays Taylor Swift music over

00:07:35.660 the speaker system. Can you imagine if you're on that flight? I mean, I would, I would lose my mind.

00:07:58.220 I think I would, I would lose my mind. I don't think they'd let me off that flight actually. Okay,

00:08:02.780 come on, but can we admit that that is not normal? This is what I think was described as mass formation

00:08:17.820 psychosis back during the pandemic. The idea that people are swept up into this, uh, into this craze

00:08:24.300 and it acts as a social contagion. This is exactly the kind of thing we saw during the pandemic. And

00:08:29.660 another thing that just shows you how ridiculous this Taylor Swift craze really is, is the number 0.99

00:08:36.220 of people really not smart people. Let's just call them that falling for ticket scams and spending 0.95

00:08:43.020 tens of thousands of dollars for Taylor Swift tickets from scammers. So desperate to see this

00:08:50.780 35 year old middle-aged childless woman perform on stage that they lose their critical thinking skills 1.00

00:08:57.660 and end up buying tickets from some shady website, which any normal person, any smart person would

00:09:03.340 know is fake. One Taylor Swift ticket scam artist made $70,000 off of idiots trying to buy tickets from 0.99

00:09:11.260 her. One Burlington mother spent $3,000 on four tickets only to find out that it was a total scam. 1.00

00:09:19.740 And she's now created a, uh, a contact form for potentially other victims, other people who

00:09:25.260 are not very smart. Let's just call them that. I don't want, I don't want to kick them when they're

00:09:28.220 down, but come on, uh, over this, uh, Taylor Swift ticket scam. And she estimates that close to

00:09:34.060 $300,000 has been taken by scammers over these swift tickets. And six buzz is reporting that an Ottawa family

00:09:44.380 has been scammed out of $22,000 after trying to buy Taylor Swift tickets. Call me a conspiracy

00:09:53.020 theorist. Call me a tinfoil hat wearer. I don't care. Something about this Taylor Swift craze just

00:09:59.580 doesn't seem right to me. It screams mass formation psychosis. It reminds me a lot about living through

00:10:07.020 the pandemic it would be one thing if the music was actually good. If the songs were memorable,

00:10:28.380 if they made a, an important cultural impact, but they're not, it's just classic pop music nonsense.

00:10:34.940 This is not the Beatles, although they're certainly not the best either. It's not Zeppelin. It's not

00:10:39.660 Rush. But for whatever reason, the mainstream institutions in this country just can't seem

00:10:44.540 to get enough of her. All right, everyone, that's going to do it for us today on the show. Thank you

00:10:48.140 so much for tuning in. My name is Harrison Faulkner, and this is Ratio.

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Juno News - November 21, 2024

Is this mass formation psychosis？

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