A Taylor Swift fan account has been going viral on Twitter for the past two days after its owner announced she was in jail for refusing to serve in Israel’s mandatory military service.
In February, the owner of the account called Taylor Swift Updates (@LegitTayUpdates) surprised her followers that she won’t be able to tweet for the upcoming two months as she is going to spend some time in jail.
A few weeks later, the account posted a handwritten update tweet from prison.
On April 2, 2019, the account owner returned to Twitter promising her followers more updates about Taylor Swift after the whole prison sentence thing.
When one of her followers questioned the reason for her imprisonment, the parody account dropped a bombshell and said: “I refused to join the IDF LMAO” referring to the Israeli Defense Forces.
The woman who is reportedly a 19-year-old resides in Southern Israel, has been drafted for Israel’s compulsory service in the military for youth under 18-year-old. Yet, those who refuse to enlist, mostly for reasons related to their opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestine, are handed prison sentences.
Meanwhile, her tweet of the reason behind being sentenced to prison went surprisingly viral on Twitter. It has been shared for around 5K times.
The account owner identified in the media as Na'ama, described her tweet becoming famous as a surprise. She also expressed her opposition to the current PM, Benjamin Netanyahu and called her followers to donate money to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund.
In response, Na'ama has received massive support from Twitter users, yet many Israeli trolls attacked her.
Some users, however, used the Taylor Swift stan political stan as a demonstration that people's engagement with pop culture does not negate with real politics.
