‘Taylor Swift tells us to take the lead!’ Could highly organised pop fans clinch victory for Brazil’s Lula?
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Earlier this month, Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva led a rally in São Paulo, as he aims to be re-elected to a fourth presidential term, and faces serious opposition from right-winger Flávio Bolsonaro. Taking the mic before a crowd on Avenida Paulista that organisers put at more than a million, the former union leader began: “I’m not sure whether to open this speech with ‘comrades’ or ‘fandoms from all over Brazil’.” The rally was organised by Lula’s Workers’ party (PT) and a string of other leftwing groups – but the spark came from pop music fandoms.
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More than 600 Brazilian fanbase groups for Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Katseye, Demi Lovato, Harry Styles, Katy Perry, Selena Gomez, as well as Brazilian stars such as Anitta, Marina Sena and Ludmilla among others, all came together to back Lula, waging an intense online campaign as soon as Lula’s rival, son of imprisoned former president Jair Bolsonaro, came out on top in the first round on 4 October. Neither candidate earned more than 50% of the vote, so a runoff is now scheduled for 25 October to decide between the two.
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When the first round results came in, “I had this feeling I’d seen it all before with Jair Bolsonaro, and that was really frustrating,” says V, a Billie Eilish fan who helps run Info Billie Brasil, one of the country’s biggest fan communities dedicated to the US singer. “So my first reaction was to use the only communication tool we have and get our community to embrace the cause: Lula’s re-election.” The account posted a short open letter to Lula on X and Instagram: “Our social media pages are open for you and your team”.
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Within hours, a wave of fan accounts had shared the same message. “We knew social media had always been a weak spot for his campaign, so for the second round we’ll do everything we can to get the word out about Lula’s government,” says V (their name, and others in this report, have been anonymised). The initiative eventually grew into Fandoms Pelo Brasil, a website explaining to pop music fans how to mobilise for Lula. “Our frustration with the election turned into something massive, uncontrollable.” Amid the crowd on Paulista, São Paulo’s main avenue, supporters carried the familiar symbols of the left, from the hammer and sickle to Palestinian flags, but there were newcomers too: Beyhive T-shirts, BTS merch and Taylor Swift motifs. “We’re inspired by these artists, and Taylor is always talking about how young people should take the lead,” said Josiane, a Swiftie.
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Her friend Giovanna, a member of the Army fandom for K-poppers BTS, agrees: “We need to step up and make ourselves heard.” “A lot of people don’t keep up with politics, but they do follow fanclubs and fan accounts, so I think fandoms can bring this kind of discussion to more people,” said Raissa, a Beyoncé fan.
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“She’s a pop diva who talks about LGBTQ+ freedom and freedom of speech, and that matters to us too.” Pop stars’ mostly progressive politics, however tempered by the commercial interests of the music industry, are the main convergence point for these fandoms. And the influence can run the other way, too.
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After Info Billie Brasil reached out to him, Finneas, Billie Eilish’s brother and collaborator, endorsed the movement with a story on his Instagram account. “Our views clearly line up with those of the Blackpink members,” says W, one of the people who run a leading Blackpink fan account in Brazil.
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“Some of them are ambassadors for Unicef or the UN, and they stand up for the environment and women’s rights. We can’t speak for them, but our ideas are aligned.” Pop music is a huge business in Brazil, and the country’s fans are globally famed – even notorious – for the intensity of their fandom, imploring artists to tour from overseas via hundreds of comments on their social media pages. Lula’s government has cannily courted these vociferous, campaign-minded fans.
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In August, he signed a “fan decree” cracking down on ticket-scalping bots and requiring free drinking water at all large public events. Some fandom representatives attended a meeting with the president. “There was no political coordination in regards to the election on our side back then, but ticketing is a huge part of fan life,” says W.
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Fandoms aren’t unanimously leftwing.
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NJZ Brasil, a fan page for the K-pop group NewJeans, is openly pro-Bolsonaro; W says they have “noticed comments and messages from rightwing voters in the Blackpink fan community”. Shakira Brasil has stayed out of political campaigns, following an earlier instruction from Shakira’s team restricting the use of the singer’s image in political content online. But V rejects that stance: “I remember congresswoman Erika Hilton once saying that everything is political, so a party or a concert can be political too.” Hilton, who was re-elected this month as the most-voted woman in the history of Brazil’s lower house, joined forces with fandoms in 2024 to campaign against a bill that would have equated abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy with homicide, even in cases of rape. The bill stalled after a public backlash.
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“We’ll wage a digital guerrilla campaign, but we’ll be on the streets as well,” Hilton said in a voice note sent to the fandoms the day after the first round. “Lula will be president again. That’s our mission, and we’re in this together – count on me.” The Info Billie Brasil team has told its followers that, until the runoff, politics will take priority over Billie Eilish news, “because we can get our issues seen,” says V.
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“We want to win rightwing voters over to the left. We won’t stop.”
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