Taylor Swift did not know he was trouble. In 2013, at the time of Swift’s Red tour during a meet-and-greet, Swift did not expect to be harassed. What should have been a fun, friendly photo turned in to a disaster when the alleged DJ David Mueller was said to have groped Swift’s bottom from under her dress.

What started off as a quiet affair quickly erupted into an issue when Mueller sued Swift. The DJ sued Swift for 3 million dollars, saying that she cost him his job due to her allegations of sexual harassment. Swift then took action and sued Mueller for one dollar, a ‘symbolic dollar’ according to her attorney. Swift took this case as an opportunity to raise awareness for the millions of sexual harassment cases that go by unreported. In fact, two out of every three cases of sexual harassment go unreported. Swift is using her voice to help encourage women and children to speak up and say no. She is giving a voice to the voiceless.

Although Swift and her team proclaim that she is not doing it for the money, many others accuse Swift of using this incident for publicity. Swift is known to be problematic by many, so there’s no surprise that she is being accused of pulling a PR stunt with this case. Due to her recent feud with rapper Kanye West, in which Swift is pictured as a liar looking for publicity, some may say that the sole purpose of this case is to “clean up” her image. DJ David Mueller also brought it to the attention of the public that Swift was only doing it for publicity, causing many people to agree with him or starting to question Swift’s true intentions. 

“In all honesty, I think she started all of this just to get publicity. However, since the whole case has become “big” around the news and social media, I feel like she starting to try to raise some sort of awareness. I’m not so sure, but my opinion is that I think she’s just doing it for publicity,” junior Nicole Baez said.

Swift is followed by many young, impressionable fans, which builds pressure upon her to become a good role model. With her status as an A-lister, it gives her the platform to broadcast the importance of speaking up and standing up for yourself. In today’s society, rape culture is basically nothing out of the ordinary, making sexual assault, catcalling, and girls being told to cover up all formalities. In most cases, the victim is blamed when they are raped, when in reality the rapist is the only one at fault. Swift’s “Symbolic Dollar” case only emphasizes that today’s rape culture is not okay, despite what others may say about it is for money or publicity. Mueller, on the other hand, gives the impression that he only cares about clearing his image and getting money from the case. If Mueller truly cared about raising awareness to sexual harassment like Swift does, then he wouldn’t care so much about losing the case that could’ve gotten him money. Instead, he decided to sue Swift’s mother as well. 

The Swift vs. Mueller trial was an eye opening case. By winning the case, Swift showed her fans and people all around the world that they should not be afraid to speak up when they are sexually assaulted. Mueller is an example of a money hungry privileged man. He sued Swift because he could not handle the fact that he got fired, but in the end, it backfired on him and he lost the case and his clean image. Swift brought the awareness to a topic that is relatively known to be as taboo and took one step closer to the end of rape culture as it is.