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Culture > Entertainment

Heading To Coachella? Your Money Could Be Going To Anti-LGBTQ, Pro-Gun, and Republican Organizations

Nicolette Khalifian
UCLA Contributor
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCLA chapter.

Coachella, the music festival of the year, known for its bohemnian ambiance and the months of preparation that go into every single outfit on your Instagram feed, may not be as glamorous as it seems. Your trendy Coachella wristband and watermelon prop is helping pay for everything you most likely have advocated against in some form or another. So, why the major hypocrisy? Why is it now validated? Does indirect support equate to utter hypocrisy? Let’s dig a little deeper.

Billionare owner Philip Anschutz has reported to have been donating large sums of coachella funds to organizations almost every celebrity or influencer has proudly stood against, yet their appearances at Coachella have not faded. Anschutz donated nearly $200,000 to Republican polititians and Super PACs, including recpients Colorado Senator Cory Gardner, Scott Tipton, Mike Coffman and former speaker of the house Paul Ryan. 

And so, the hypocrisy lies. This is further seen through boycotting, a popular method of sharing a lack of support for a type of individual and what they stand for by removing oneself from the equation of a service or chain of goods, and celebrities are not strangers to it. In recent reports of the Beverly Hills Hotel having relation to supporting anti-LGBTQ affairs, social media has been flooded with demands to boycott all hotels tied to Brunei’s discriminatory laws. These include Hotel Bel Air and the Beverly Hills Hotel, two luxury spots in Los Angeles. Yet, no boycott has ever been surfaced for Coachella. 

But then again, Anschutz responded by saying all reports that portray him as a man of hatred and bigotry are “fake news”, and went on to donate $1 million to Elton John’s AID Coalition. But the question still lies: why support a festival where such allegations have been made, and there is a extremely fair chance your ticket stubs are going to such organizations? If you truly cared, would you even risk it? And so, the hypocrisy is once again heightened. Boycotts are the most sudden response to every single allegation the media proposes, yet one for Coachella has lied under the bus for celebrities’ appearances to such an event are money making, fun, and money making. They make headlines for their oufits and fan interactions. Why say no to that? Hmmm..

Yet, some celebs have come forward in their protest of Coachella, including model and actress Cara Delevinge who shared her voice in an Instagram story last year: 

So, what do you think? Is anyone in the wrong? If you stand for boycotts, shouldn’t you boycott all that lie in the same plane? Can you advocate for LGBTQ rights, push for hours on end for gun control and complain about Republican policy while simultaneously fueling it all? Or, is Coachella the exception? 

Nicolette is sophomore at UCLA studying psychobiology with a minor in professional writing. She is the author of her first published book, Control Mindset, a nonfiction guide to taking control of your mind & reality. Her aspirations are in the field of medicine, but she enjoys connecting the art of writing and creation with the sciences. She thinks writing biographies is very hard so she is butchering this as she types. She thanks you for reading her article and hopes you learned something new. She also loves coffee and needs some right now. She argues dark roast is the best roast. She's also probably hungry right now. Nom nom.
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