Wait. What? Sadly, the headline before you is no joke. Taylor Swift, despite not being a white supremacist or having any affiliations with related groups, has been crowned the "Aryan goddess" by some meme-loving neo-Nazis. The unwitting declaration was revealed in a recent deep dive on the subject by Broadly, with the founder of the infamous neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer theorizing that a Donald Trump presidency would bring all of this to light.
"Taylor Swift is a pure Aryan goddess, like something out of classical Greek poetry. Athena reborn. That's the most important thing," Andrew Anglin, a presumably real person, told Broadly. "It is also an established fact that Taylor Swift is secretly a Nazi and is simply waiting for the time when Donald Trump makes it safe for her to come out and announce her Aryan agenda to the world. Probably, she will be betrothed to Trump's son, and they will be crowned American royalty."
As noted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Anglin is reportedly the kind of guy who does things like recommend that Heidi Cruz, partner of former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, be executed. His site, the aforementioned Daily Stormer, is described by the SPLC as a "neo-Nazi cesspool" that regularly presents headlines like "Adolf Hitler: The Most Lied About Man of All Time."
Though pinpointing the exact moment that neo-Nazis started touting Swift (unbeknownst to her) as some sort of icon is difficult, the best estimates place the beginning of this bizarre merging of seemingly opposing worlds at some point in 2013. Pinterest user @PoopCutie, presumably not a legal name, started attributing Hitler quotes to Swift as an act of parody. When BuzzFeed picked up the memes and @PoopCutie's creations started going viral, Swift's lawyers popped in with a stern warning for Pinterest:
The association of Ms. Swift with Adolf Hitler undisputedly is 'harmful,' 'abusive,' 'ethnically offensive,' 'humiliating to other people,' 'libelous,' and no doubt 'otherwise objectionable.' It is of no import that Ms. Swift may be a public figure or that Pinterest conveniently now argues that the Offending Material is mere satire or parody. Public figures have rights. And, there are certain historical figures, such as Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson and the like, who are universally identified in the case law and popular culture as lightning rods for emotional and negative reaction.
Similar meme accounts juxtaposing Hitler quotes with Swift's image then started to pop up, with many of the creations eventually landing on sites like Daily Stormer. "The entire alt-right patiently awaits the day when we can lay down our swords and kneel before her throne," Anglin told Broadly, despite the fact that (it's worth repeating) Swift has no affiliation with white supremacy groups.
Representatives for Swift did not immediately respond to Complex's request for comment.
