I know of three starlets I’m super proud of right now who Taylor Swift can actually learn from, even though all three of these girls are quite a bit younger than her.

With everything going on politically right now, it’s an important time for people with a platform to speak up and use their voice.

It’s also important for people who have more privilege than others to use their privilege if they claim to be on the right side of history.

Before becoming an independent pop culture journalist, I felt like I was stifled by my editors, unable to share my genuine opinions, but at this point, I can really say whatever is on my mind.

I do deep dives into celebs and media, so these are my thoughts on three starlets, who I wish Taylor Swift would start emulating as soon as possible.

Olivia Rodrigo.

I used to be a way bigger Swiftie than I am these days and I can admit that. I used to love listening to Taylor’s music day in and day out because I found her to be so honest and relatable.

I appreciated the vulnerability of her lyrics. But I have been feeling super disappointed and letdown recently at her complete and total silence with everything going on.

At least as of this publication, she isn’t speaking up for anything and hasn’t really spoken for anything since the 2024 election.

All that being said, Olivia Rodrigo is the first artist that is leading by example.

When this current administration used her song All American Bitch for the soundtrack of an Instagram video, Olivia wasn’t cool with it.

The video was a direct attack against immigrants, and Olivia responded in a comment writing, “Don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda.“

Her comment was removed, but plenty of screenshots were captured, and those screenshots went viral.

It’s not surprising that Olivia spoke out because she has always been on the side of human rights.

One of her biggest focuses has been on reproductive freedoms and a woman’s right to choose.

She’s been super supportive of Planned Parenthood and she’s donated millions of dollars to ending gender based violence, helping ensure access to healthcare, and education of young girls.

She’s also advocated for Palestinian rights, she encourages young voter participation, and she’s super supportive of the LGBTQ community and Black Lives Matter movement.

So again, it’s not surprising that Olivia clapped back at this administration’s use of her song.

But it is a little shocking that they chose to use a song from her, knowing where she stands because her stance has never been a secret.

At one point, Olivia‘s team was even handing out Plan B pills at her concerts, which, for those who don’t know, Plan B pills are known as emergency contraception.

She made it a point to hand those emergency contraceptions out because she knows they can be extremely expensive and difficult for people to get their hands on.

So she was trying to make life easier for young women.

The reality is that human beings are sexual creatures by design. People are going to have sex.

Every single time you have sex, you may not want that encounter to result in a pregnancy.

But sometimes, for even the most careful people who are using protection and using birth control, sometimes an unwanted pregnancy can still occur.

Olivia‘s willingness to step up by passing out those Plan B pills speaks volumes about where her heart is.

Olivia is outspokenness inspires me a lot, and it’s something I wish Taylor would learn from.

Sabrina Carpenter.

Sabrina Carpenter had to stand up for herself against the current administration when they decided to use one of her songs without her permission as the back track to one of their videos promoting Ice raids.

When they used her song, Juno, and Sabrina clapped back writing, “Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.”

She also described it as “evil and disgusting.”

Her tweet ended up pulling in quite the ratio because her response pulled in way more likes and retweets than the initial post from the White House.

It’s kind of confusing that they decided to use a song from Sabrina when Sabrina has always been very boldly and unapologetically open about her stance on human rights.

She cares about the LGBTQ community, she cares about women’s rights, she was out there protesting during the Black Lives Matter Movement protests in 2020, and she supports immigrant causes.

She’s a highly charitable artist who’s donated significant funds to organizations that support mental health, animal, welfare, and beyond.

Sabrina Carpenter has been standing on business speaking up for what she believes in for a while now, and in my opinion, it’s incredibly inspiring.

Her super close friendship with Taylor Swift makes me wonder how or why Taylor hasn’t also realize that she should be taking a page from Sabrina’s book.

As a reminder, Sabrina was Taylor’s opener for the Eras Tour in 2024 and they even collaborated on the title track from Taylor’s album The Life of a Showgirl in 2025.

They have performed duets on stage together, they’ve been spotted hanging out at award shows, paparazzi has spotted them going to dinner together multiple times.

Sabrina isn’t scared of speaking up, and the fact that she does have a close friendship with Taylor only shines a brighter light on the fact that Taylor is being so quiet.

Taylor’s silence has never been louder, especially in light of Sabrina’s willingness to take a stance.

Billie Eilish.

Billie Eilish has been openly critical of this current administration for years now, and she even accused the current president of “destroying our country and everything we care about“ back in 2020.

She said that at the Democratic national convention.

Billie’s outspokenness shines a light on the fact that Taylor Swift has been silent.

Billie has been an advocate for human rights since she initially arose to fame.

She’s always used her platform to encourage people to have empathy for others.

Right after the 2024 election results were announced, Billie performed her song TV on stage, which includes a heartbreaking line about the overturning of Roe v Wade.

And she shared her thoughts candidly on stage, knowing full well, she would be met with criticism from plenty of people.

Yet she still said exactly what was on her heart anyway. She said, “Someone who hates women so so deeply is about to be president of the United States of America. So this song is for all the women out there. I love you, I support you.”

The reason she said that is because the president was found liable of SA in 2023 against a woman named E. Jean Carroll.

He was not technically convicted of the crime, but he was ordered to pay her out $5 million in damages.

This situation hits home for Billie, who admitted that she’s also dealt with the personal experience of being taken advantage of by someone who crossed the line with her.

The reality for women is that one out of every three women has faced some form of physical abuse or violence at least once in our lifetime.

This statistic hasn’t moved for many years, which is really overwhelming to think about. It makes me feel really tired of existing in this world, if I’m being completely honest.

And it also makes me feel very hopeless.

But it also makes me feel grateful when people like Billie use their platform to speak up on behalf of those of us who don’t necessarily have a voice.

And it serves as a LOUD reminder that people like Taylor who have even bigger platforms aren’t using their voice.

People like Taylor are kind of fading into the background of silence. And the reality is that silence is violence. Silence is compliance.

If you’re remaining neutral in the heart of everything going on right now, then you’re not really a safe person.

When Taylor used to speak out…

Back in the good old days when Taylor used to speak out for human rights, she truly gave superhero vibes to me.

I felt like she was a superhero. I felt like she was one of the strongest, boldest, most fearless women in the music industry to look up to.

She was all about women’s rights, supporting the LGBTQ community, and she donated to causes supporting the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

She used to share social media post all the time urging her fans to vote for democratic politicians.

She spoke out against police brutality, and she was a huge advocate for a quality across the board.

Some of the biggest songs she’s released were huge pieces of evidence that she wanted the world to know what side of history she was on.

I’ll start with You Need to Calm Down. She dropped that song with a music video full of members of the LGBTQ community.

She depicted conservative, close minded people in her music video as hillbillies and rednecks and made it known that she believes the LGBTQ community is full of beautiful people who deserve to live their life freely without being controlled or hated.

Her song The Man from her album Lover dives into topics of male privilege, sexism, and the unequal standards placed upon women in society.

When she released that song, I truly believed she was passionate about feminism.

The song can be classified as a feminist anthem because there are undoubtedly unequal standards placed on women in society that no one seems to care about dismantling.

People who don’t want to be faced with the reality that sexism is still a very real problem will try to sweep it under the rug and avoid conversations about it.

But here’s the truth.

The gender pay gap still exist. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, women are often offered less money than men to do the same exact jobs.

Women also face workplace discrimination and biases against them if they get pregnant or decide, they want to start a family. It’s far less common to find women in leadership, roles and positions, and one of the big reasons for that is sexism.

And women are disproportionately more likely to experience sexual violence compared to men.

When Taylor released The Man, it was her way of acknowledging some of the unfortunate struggles women are still dealing with.

But it feels like the version of Taylor that was comfortable releasing. That type of music is long gone.

Taylor also released a song called Only the Young in 2020 that addresses gun violence. It’s a topic.

No one wants to talk about. It’s a painful and uncomfortable topic. The fact that our country has so many mass shootings is problematic.

But once upon a time, Taylor was willing to release a song that actually called attention to that topic.

The release of Taylor’s most recent album came across as a bit tone deaf in light of everything going on.

One argument I have for the positive side of her album is that it served as a great distraction from everything negative going on in the world.

So if that’s what she was aiming to do, then she definitely succeeded at that.

Although there are a lot of people who heavily criticized her album, it has still done incredibly well, in terms of streams and sales, so those numbers prove that Taylor’s album is still successful, despite some negative commentary we might’ve seen circulating on social media.

The height of my love for Taylor lit up when she released her documentary Miss Americana.

It came out in 2020 and I was absolutely sat. I was so obsessed with her willingness to speak up politically during the argument with her father.

He was urging her to stay more neutral to avoid pissing off fans with different viewpoints.

But she hit back at him stating that she was ready to start speaking up instead of staying silent.

In the documentary, she said, “I need to be on the right side of history.“

At that time, being on the right side of history was a top priority for her.

I was also at the height of my love for Taylor when she endorse Kamala Harris before the 2024 election.

The timing in which she did it was not the best. I wish that post had gone up earlier so that certain fans had more time to ruminate and really think things through after taking Taylor‘s opinion into account since she is such a highly influential person.

But things happened as they happened, and it all played out the way it did. And these are the cards we’ve been dealt.

I’m still a Swiftie, but not as intensely as I used to be.

And I really do think Taylor could learn a thing or two from some of the younger artists who have been using their platforms to speak out for human rights like Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, and Billie Eilish.