By Dustin Rowles | Politics | July 15, 2021 |
By Dustin Rowles | Politics | July 15, 2021 |
Olivia Rodrigo spent the day yesterday gallivanting about The White House with Dr. Fauci and Joe Biden in an effort to encourage, particularly, younger people to get vaccinated. Anything, at this point, will help, especially in Southern states where vaccination rates are low (in particular among young people), the Delta variant is spreading, and people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are filling up hospital beds while Fox News continues to push vaccine disinformation. I recently checked my hometown in Arkansas and saw that the city of 35,000 that I grew up in had 3 times more COVID-19 cases than the entire state of Maine.
Things are bad. Anything will help, and if you’re angling for young people, you can’t do much better than Rodrigo, who not only has the number one album in America, the Jagged Little Pill-esque, Sour, but is the star of one of the biggest shows on Disney+, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and if Rodrigo can normalize vaccinations in the same way that the series normalizes being queer, we might just see the vaccination rates tick up a notch or two.
Singer @Olivia_Rodrigo ​wants you to ‘look happy and healthy’ — so she’s teaming up with the White House to encourage young people to get vaccinate pic.twitter.com/wfqKbqOnY5
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 15, 2021
The media savvy Rodrigo — who is smart about what she emulates — also knew how to attract an audience on social media by channeling Jackie Kennedy, Clueless, and Legally Blonde.
.@Olivia_Rodrigo at the White House today proving staying unvaccinated is ‘Clueless pic.twitter.com/g4c6dGYAHR
— Caroline Fenyo (@CarolineFenyo) July 14, 2021
MY president knows you cant put a half loop stitch on china silk!
— stephanie (@livsprada) July 15, 2021
— olivia rodrigo as elle woods pic.twitter.com/ELt0II9Dpf
Rodrigo even managed to briefly make Joe Biden look cool.
cant believe olivia rodrigo met steve rogers before me pic.twitter.com/DT0yW4vJAn
— Ù‹kay (was @lastfirstlivs) rt 📌 (@westsideIiv) July 15, 2021
Rodrigo’s appearance in the White House was all part of the Biden Administration’s plan to both reach out to the youths and combat misinformation about the vaccine.
There are three episodes left of the second season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which is currently airing on Disney+. Meanwhile, the vaccination rate in the United States — where everyone over the age of 12 has access to a free vaccine — sits at a woeful 48 percent.