Are You a Beyoncé Voter?

In the great tradition of Harvard students receiving national attention for tumblr pages (see here,  here, and here), Sarah E. Coughlon ’15 has captured the spotlight with her new blog called “Beyoncé Voters.” The website is a response to a quote from Fox News host Jesse Watters who said of Hillary Clinton, “This is how she’s going to try to win the White House….she needs the single ladies vote — I call them the Beyoncé voters...they depend on government because they’re not depending on their husbands. They need things like contraception, health care, and they love to talk about equal pay.”

When Coughlon saw the Fox interview, she said, she was inspired to create her tumblr, which features photos of Beyoncé lyrics superimposed on photos ranging from female politicians, to the Supreme Court, to different types of birth control. Though Coughlon called Beyoncé, “the perfect human,” the tumblr is about more than an idolization of Queen B.

“Beyoncé is not trivial,” Coughlon said, noting that Beyoncé has recently been a flashpoint in discussions about feminism and media. Though Coughlon didn’t specifically seek to highlight any issues in the tumblr, reproductive rights and strong female political leaders are recurring themes, especially in the form of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

When Coughlon began putting the blog together, she was certain that something like it already existed. The last thing she expected was for it to gain so much attention, including a recent article in the Washington Post. She compared the blog’s accidental fame to “Your grandpa makes a Facebook account by accident and everybody inexplicably liking it,” or the surprise popularity of Sen. Chuck Grassley’s twitter.

Though Coughlon said she doesn’t have any major plans for the tumblr’s future besides possibly making Beyoncé Voter bro tanks, we can’t wait to invest in some Notorious RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) swag.