Taylor Swift and the American Propaganda Machine 

I can't escape the cancer that is betterhelp. When will these channels realize how unethical that company is?

Great video Wisecrack! George Carlin once said "You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge."

Betterhelp: The Uber of Psychology

so everyone just... forgot about betterhelp and the shit they do? great.

So we’re back to promoting betterhelp, huh.

"The future is products. I'm a product. You're a product. The end of the world.. is a product!"

Taylor Swift, like many performing artists is a separate fictional character divorced from their real persona. Just as Freddie Mercury was really Farrokh Bulsara, there is a video of him on RU-vid in which he explains this during an interview. The person people think they know as Taylor Swift is just an onstage persona and it has to be that way otherwise she would have lost her mind trying to maintain a marketable character a long time ago. Which is why this talk of intimacy and diaries with relation to Swift's onstage persona is so incredibly cringeworthy. Swift's marketing abilities are on a psychopathic level.

Because I'm old, I remember music artists in the 90s were preoccupied to no small extent with questions of authenticity, and when someone could be considered a "sellout". Now? Artists look forward to when their music will be used in a car commercial. They put that in their career plan.

Helen is back!!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Honestly it's less of a "Swift issue" or a particular celebrity issue, or even a singular corporative brand issue, but more of a consumerist systemic one just like Adorno predicted. It just happens to be that, to the credit of Swifties who prop her, Taylor is VERY good at navigating and playing the neoliberal capitalist game, but ultimately everyone plays it because if you don't you are apparently threatened to be inexorably out of a livelihood. Thusly, everyone gives in to collectively make the world a worse place by bowing to the capitalist and consumerist urge. Even this channel does it. Yeah, by getting sponsored by betterhelp which is notoriously a corporation that cares zero about the mental health of their workers and clients (they are not even patients) and cares only for profiting on desperate people to consume their "product" (which is absolutely not an online mental health help service, mhm). But I get it; Wisecrack also needs to eat. It's not like there are other more ethical sponsors out there, but, too bad that they don't pay as well, right? They just play the game better, right? 😉😉😉

"I open up my diary and share it with you" bet you won't open up that wallet though

No such thing as an ethical billionaire

Loved this breakdown of how the commoditification of art makes the product easily malleable to propaganda

oh no, wisecrack posted an objective analysis about taylor swift. i hope they bought swifty insurance for their company.

Probably the most capitalist artist I know.

Is this why Michael is able to capitalize on the plight of the bald and blur the line of consumer and creator during Wisecrack Live stream?

"The Culture Industry"... what a disgusting idea.

Can you guys stop being sponsored by Better Help?

I don't really have much sympathy for any billionaire. Even one that is personally inoffensive. I would love it if she read Mark Fisher and Byung-Chul Han though and went through a burnout. The thing is, being a billionaire means that being burntout doesn't carry the risk of homelessness.

Actually, M&M’s rejected ET and Reeses Pieces took the opportunity to jump into the candy stratosphere.

Taylor Swift comes from a wealthy family she can talk a good middle class game but like any business you need seed money and I know I had an inde label from 1987-2006 I used credit cards to promote my first 2 CDs and lucked up with freaknic and the Olympics in Atlanta from 94-97 if it wasn't for that I was already working 60 hrs a week to pay studio copies promotion lawyer retainer rent and bills.when you come from wealthy 🤑 all you need to do is show your pretty little self up and perform ❤

Better Help is ilegal in my country, you need a medical license emitted by the public health care system to give any psychological advise. how are these ads allowed inside of google's, so weird

Swift must be an acquired (and apparently somewhat addictive) taste. In all clips here I get that distinct feeling of someone who's "on", really on. Skill and savviness isn't to be discouraged (much less in women), and she clearly is savvy, but there's also something uncanny about her. I'm watching someone who is so clearly a living brand attempt, apparently successfully, to pass off as authentic, to cultivate parasocial closeness en masse. I don't think she's cooperating in some covert government operation, but obviously she is her own self-promoting operation.

Helen! Welcome back! Love your videos as a host🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

A really good and informative video. You forgot to mention that Taylor Swift's father bought her a music studio with his millions gained through working at Merrill Lynch... but all and all, great job.

Sergeant York is a true story. Yes, a movie about a different subject could have been made, but the very religious Alvin York really did fight in the Argonne and do some crazy stunts while taking Hill 223. He was like the prototype version of Audie Murphy.

I’m a huge swiftie and I support every word of this video - some of us contain layers… you’re right to be afraid tho. 😅

This video reminded me so much of Louis Althusser's book "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses"

On the bright side, wisecrack is getting a lot of engagement on this video lmao

I love how the barbie movie properly shows the degradation of our language by falsely calling people fascists.

anyone remember that old Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon where they sung “a-haunting we will go”?

idk capitalism leads to some weird results

Her fans were foolish enough to buy the same albums twice wow...

what an incredibly brave video to post

Algorithm bump for engagement!

I think forming political opinions based on popular culture puts a glaring spotlight on the intelligence of the average voter.

7:31 Correction: Reese's Pieces do not contain chocolate

How did she get away with trademarking "players gonna play" 😭

Whoa whoa whoa. Reese’s pieces are not chocolate.

Helen, I absolutely adorno you... lol silly joke. I apreciate so much your commitment to analize the Taylor Swift fenomenon. Thank you. Because I have always felt something suspicious of the way she presents herself, and now I know why. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be the most rich person in the planet, we all need money to live in this society, I perfectly understand the Betterhelp situation, but I'm more of an ars gratia artis kind of girl. I love when artists do their thing and don't give a fuck about sales or pleasing the public. Because then you can express all of your feelings and emotions without restiction, from the most beautiflu ones to the most disgusting and sinful ones. And I do love some darkness and sin. I think those extreme artistic explorations can help society in the long run than plain, simple heartbreak and "you do you girl" kind of art. Honestly, sometimes I'm overwhelmed with all this love for Taylor Swift. I went to a party where someone put the obligatory Taylor Swift hour and was impressed to hear a girl wearing an Iron Maiden hoodie saying "There is a Taylor Swift song for any occasion" and it really made me feel out of place. But, now I understand why absolutely everybody (but my husband and I) really like Taylor Swift. Thank you for making me understand more this crazy world we live in. Love from Mexico City.

Lets hope this get big for the Swifties, I thought it was a good video and it might help people understand the world they are living in.

3:08 me too! Charlie chaplin is classic! Which is your favorite film of him? Mine is the circus!

While I understand her appeal with her fans, I never related to her as she feels too old to sing about middle-school drama. As for those people who think she is a psyops, those people are so desperate for the touch of grass, that to them, EVERYTHING is a psyops... I mean: EVERYTHING!!

T-Swift is the most calculated pop entertainer in history and I do mean that as both an compliment and a slam... I've never seen an artist who is so viciously pro-business, especially her own and while that's admirable from a personal power standpoint it's also sickening when it leads to an eerie Cult of Personality that rivals T-Rump at this point... People paying thousands to see her in stadium with 70,000 people to me seems insane. As much as I love music I can't think of an artist dead or alive worth that kind of cash especially one so meh... $100? Sure why not... $1000? AYFKM?

It's capitalism all the way down.

Rewriting Animal Farm to be anti-communist? Um, have you read the original book?

...Huh. It's not like the CIA needed to buy the rights to Animal Farm to make sure it was anti-Soviet, unless the producers were going to significantly alter the story.

When someone shoots somebody, we don't throw the gun in jail. We look at the person wielding it. Who is wiedling these media tools? Who are the ones with the money? I dont really listen to her music so I know nothing about her. I'll leave that to the people who feel influenced by her to decide.

Your local K-pop artist says 'lose lips sink ships' 😂😂😂

There is a point where Helen uses the phrase “lived-experience.” “Lived-experience” as opposed to what? “Unlived-experience?” If you’ve had an experience it is implied that you lived through it.

Food for thought, thanks for the video!

Michael, your hair is back!

Does anyone have source for that Hays quote? I cannot find it

"They rewrote Animal Farm to make it anticommunist?" Did you read the original?

Hi Helen!!! So happy to see you again!

Her answers to those question were just ugh. Capitalism and this entrepreneurial mindset has infected her personality.

I've tried to listen to TS's music several times. And I've always found it to be painfully average and surface level catchy. I think TS plays the game(s) better than anyone else, and thus is paid handsomely for it: well done.

This is why i am trying to work on decomercialising art, and making being an artist a viable thing without people having to sell their art.

Re Betterhelp: “Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself,” it reads. “Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead”

0:32 How many people know this toad is Hypnotoad from Futurama? Or does everyone think it's just a generic 'mindcontrol meme'?

It shows us that some Americans are slow when it comes to propaganda and don’t look beyond the point 😂

Didn't expect to see an old Malaysian McD ad in today's video.

Swift's celebrity is so powerful that her fans will happily do whatever it takes to please her.

Where are you Micheaaal. Where you hiiidiiing. The swifties won't hurt yah 😈

You show a scene from Hail, Ceasar! and then reference Adorno... You've done Uncle Herbie wrong 😂

I TRULY hate TS and now you've given me more concrete reasons as to why I've always instinctively hated her. The more of her I see the more intense my instincts.

I've never seen this through a neoliberal lens! this is Wisecrack at its best. providing a nudge in a new direction and food for thought!

Love the vid! It's so difficult to tell about propaganda to people... Its reinvigorating seen some good work about the theme.... Love Helen!

Ha! I told you all there was something weird about "Animal Farm"! Who's crazy now, eh?

At first i was rolling my eyes at the premise of this episode... And then I ended up fully convinced.

Swift out here putting on a master class of how to be an effective businesswoman and artist

The logic behind (U.S.) emotionalist productions is akin to Fascism.

Great breakdown!

Lovely video, and it’s great to see Helen back. She should join one of the live streams some day. I’m curious what her 666 voice would be like

Glad to see Helen back

She is the modern embodiment of mass consumerism, and how to flood the market. Wish people would call her out more. She is wasteful, very for-profit motivated, and her people actually try to crackdown on press that doesn't outwardly praise her at all times.

Oh yes tough on crime, but crappy mass transit.

Sponsors remind us we can't have nice things without something terrible supporting it behind the scenes.

Babe, wake up... New BetterHelp Propaganda just dropped

I was about to watch and then I saw the better help ad.

Great work guys, one of your best.

Insightful, and thought provoking

Not gonna memtion the Rambo 3 dedication to "the brave Mujaheddin fighters [of Afghanistan]?"

My answer to this is Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. And our perceptions are influenced by various things. Known and unknown to us.

"Breathing brand TayTay, We can't just leave those POORS market segment untapped for profits." tHe ErAs ToUr Genius! She's literally my favourite company. 100% Genuine product!

I see your Tylor Swift and I raise you "Ross take on music on SmartyPants".

Wow! 10/10 vid! More please!

You know what’s actually propaganda? BetterHelp sponsorships

Sorry for being late, but hey Helen is back!! :)

3:44 And here on the right, we see Larry David's first acting role. He's old here, too.

This video gets _my_ Swiftie stamp of approval. Well, except for the BetterHelp sponsorship.

You guys Cooked with that thumbnail ❤❤❤❤

Anyone know where I can learn more about that CIA 1984 stuff?

It's really disappointing to see you guys still doing spots for Better Help

There's a line of dialogue in a Ukrainian-Russia videogame (based on a novel) that puts it nicely: "It's just like old Hollywood movies depicting Soviet Union!"

Fascinating. Even if I personally am not familiar with Swift or Barbie, Im sure the same forces mentioned in this video have affected me.

i got brainwashed by the fans of taylor swift because i don't like new taylor's songs anymore because i'm just fucking sick of it

She's back!!!

Great vid

Is anything propaganda if everything is propaganda?