Pop icon Taylor Swift is taking fans — and much of pop culture — by surprise with her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. The album debuted with an in-theater listening event, a cinematic music video for its opening track “The Fate of Ophelia,” and what many are calling “the most aggressively natalist pop song ever written.”
Former Disney star Sabrina Carpenter used her platform at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards to promote LGBTQI+ activism, flooding the stage with drag queens holding signs demanding appreciation, applause, and political rights. Her performance marked one of the most overt political displays of the evening, blending pop culture with progressive ideology in a show broadcast to millions.
