On Aug. 31, 2024, the Facebook account American Liberty posted a meme claiming that the Country Music Hall of Fame had announced it would not consider singer Taylor Swift for induction.
The text of the meme read: “The Country Music Hall of Fame Says it Won’t Consider Taylor Swift or Her ‘Bubblegum Music’ for Induction.”
(Facebook page American Liberty)
As of this writing, the post had received around 1,700 reactions and 351 comments, some left by readers who seemed to interpret the rumor as a factual recounting of real-life events. One commenter wrote: “She’s about as country as Led Zeppelin.”
Other readers spoke up in defense of Swift’s country bona fides, with one writing: “Her first album was country, and the song Tim McGraw was a hit, and she collaborated with country artists, at least she’s not Beyoncé.”
However, there was no evidence that the Country Music Hall of Fame had ever made any statement regarding its intention to consider — or not consider — Swift for membership.
A Google search for the terms “Taylor Swift,” “Country Music Hall of Fame,” and “bubblegum music” returned no coverage of such a claim from any reputable media outlet. The same search without quotation marks returned a debunking of a nearly identical meme that was posted by the Facebook page America’s Last Line of Defense (ALLOD) in early 2024.
(Facebook page America’s Last Line of Defense)
In the comments on that earlier post, which had received around 10,000 reactions at the time of this writing, an administrator of the account posted a link to an article on Latherland.com, a website associated with ALLOD. That article began:
Taylor Swift’s day just got worse. After the Academy of Country Music cut its ties with her, the Country Music Hall of Fame announced it would remove all of her “bubble gum music” from consideration.
“She tosses a twangy song in here and there to keep her spot in the Academy and the awards coming in,” said Academy Sergeant at Arms Joe Barron, “It doesn’t matter if she deserves it or not. If Taylor Swift gets nominated, Taylor Swift wins.”
Not anymore. Without an Academy membership, there are no awards. Without its blessing, there are no inductions. Swift loses a piece of her legacy she’ll never get back.
“She did it to herself,” said Vince, a guy visiting the museum, “Had she not come out and illegally used her influence to push people into exercising their constitutional right to vote, Trump would have won. It’s that simple. They should have a word for that kind of nonsense.”
In both cases, the rumor that the Country Music Hall of Fame had disqualified Swift from consideration for induction originated from ALLOD — a network of social media accounts and websites that describe their output as satirical in nature. The American Liberty Facebook page’s Intro section stated:
“A subsidiary of the ALLOD network of trollery. Nothing on this page is real.”
The Latherland.com article, which was reposted on at least one other website affiliated with ALLOD, contained other clues that the story was not factual. First, membership in the Country Music Hall of Fame is determined by electors of the Country Music Association (CMA) — not the Academy of Country Music, as claimed in the article.
Second, there was no evidence that the CMA uses the title “Sergeant at Arms” for any of the members of its Board of Directors — although the Academy of Country music, which has no affiliation with the Country Music Hall of Fame, does.
Third, regardless of title, there was no individual named Joe Barron on the most recently available list of the CMA’s Board of Directors. The name “Joe Barron” has, however, appeared frequently in false stories originating from ALLOD-affiliated websites. In claims originating from the network that Snopes has previously investigated, Joe Barron has been named, incorrectly, as the head coach of the New York Jets, the president of the NCAA, and the CEO of DirecTV, among many other examples.
As explained on the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s official website, every year CMA electors vote to induct one “Veterans Era Artist” and one “Modern Era Artist” to the Hall of Fame. A musician becomes eligible for consideration as a Veterans Era Artist 45 years after they first achieved national prominence, while eligibility as a Modern Era Artist begins 20 years after the artist first achieved national prominence.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum did not define on its website exactly what standard was used to measure “achieving national prominence,” but Swift’s first album, “Taylor Swift,” and her first single, “Tim McGraw,” were both released in 2006, suggesting that the earliest year the singer could be considered for induction as a Modern Era Artist would be 2026.
Snopes has addressed similar satirical claims about Taylor Swift that originated from ALLOD-affiliated accounts and sites in the past, including the assertion that four venues canceled Swift concerts because of profanity concerns and a rumor that Swift had a younger sister who received $63K in student loan forgiveness.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
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Publish date : 2024-09-03 10:41:00
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