Beyond that, she recently announced her third album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, to be released May 17, 2024. She spent the days leading up to the announcement building excitement by adding all of her Instagram followers to her “Close Friends” list. Eilish had the most Instagram followers in 48 hours…with her count increasing by 7 million followers total.
While her debut album, when we all fall asleep…where do we go?, was a chart-topper in its own right, it landed Billie every GRAMMY it was nominated for at the ripe age of 18…Eilish has solidified herself as one of the most sought-after and revered popstars in the world.
Eilish recently caught media attention for quietly revealing her sexuality. In an interview with Variety, she states that she’s always liked girls…and assumed people always knew that. In a viral snippet from her new song, LUNCH, she details a love affair with a girl.
But people don’t only adore Billie for her catchy tracks that consistently top the charts. It’s not just her songwriting ability and unique vocals that keep us hooked. People love her because she’s unafraid to speak her mind.
Whether it be complaining about too many influencers being at an awards show, or calling out other artists for using unsustainable practices…Billie does not hold back.
Billie Eilish On Sustainability
Eilish home
rethinkingthefuture.com
The Eilish home is iconic for many reasons: it’s where Billie and Finneas recorded her debut album, countless other songs, and EPs, in an effort to conserve water there’s no grass, and the roof is covered in solar panels. And being environmentally conscious extends beyond the four walls of their home.
When the hottest young talent is discovered at such an early age like Eilish, record labels are chomping at the bit to sign them. It’s like when a D1 athlete is ready to commit to college…you have your pick.
But what Eilish and her mom, Maggie Baird, were looking for wasn’t about money or label-perks…they were seeking a solid sustainability program. And while that may seem like standard practice, most labels didn’t bring up environmental policies during these meetings at all.
After signing to The Darkroom via Interscope Records, the struggle didn’t stop there. Billie Eilish and her family have been consistent contributors to the fight against climate change.
Maggie Baird has since started Support + Feed, which focuses on the climate crisis and food insecurity. Support + Feed helped Eilish’s 2022 Happier Than Ever tour save 8.8 million gallons of water through plant-based meal service for the artist and crew members.
During Billie’s 2023 Lollapalooza performance, she aided the launch and funding of REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Project – which guaranteed all battery systems used during her set were solar powered. The MCD’s overall mission is to lower – and eventually eliminate –the music industry’s carbon emissions.
But more recently, Billie Eilish called out other artists for releasing multiple versions of vinyls in order to boost vinyl sales. In an interview with Billboard, she says,
“We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging … which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money and gets them more…”
Artists convince fans to buy different versions of their albums by offering exclusive features on each vinyl. Take Taylor Swift, for example, who released five separate vinyl versions of Midnights, each with a different deluxe “Vault” track.
While Billie may not have been trying to shade one artist in particular, the point is that she’s fed up. After being the rare artist in the industry who go out of their way to remain environmentally conscious, Eilish sets the bar high.
How Eilish’s New Album Is Sustainable
Billie for "Hit Me Hard and Soft"
William Drumm
Social media users were quick to claim Eilish was hypocritical by announcing that HIT ME HARD AND SOFT will have eight vinyl variations. However, each vinyl is made from recycled materials – either 100% recycled black vinyl or BioVinyl, which replaces petroleum used during manufacturing with recycled cooking oil.
This just illustrates that Eilish wasn’t directing criticism towards other artists for using vinyl variants to gain album sales…but she does think there are better ways to do it that benefit the environment without hurting their sales.
Deceased Brothel Owner Wins Nevada Election: This is America
Midterm elections are often considered a referendum on a sitting administration's progress—a collective report card graded by the people. Early numbers from this year's elections suggest a substantial and possibly record increase in voter turnout, which has been historically low in non-presidential voting years. It's not surprising, given the turbulent political climate, that candidates from both parties continued to campaign at full speed up until the final hours. Yet despite an election cycle that saw blatantly racist attack ads, felony accusations, and threats of violence, the one surefire road to victory has been apparent for years: death.
Outlandish as it may seem, at least nine dead people have been elected to public office since 1962—six in the last 20 years alone. The latest, Dennis Hof, whose body was discovered last month after the legal brothel owner had celebrated at a campaign-and-birthday party, claimed victory in Nevada last night. Prior to his death, the 72-year-old had been celebrating with friends Heidi Fleiss, Ron Jeremy, and Joe Arpaio.
Ballots Beyond the Grave: Deceased People Who Have Won Elections
Rep. Clement Miller (CA, 1962; airplane accident)
Reps. Nick Begich (AK) and Hale Boggs (LA, 1972; airplane accident)
Gov. Mel Carnahan (MO, 2000; plane crash)
Rep. Patsy Mink (HI, 2002; viral pneumonia)
Sen. James Rhoades (PENN, 2008; car accident)
Sen. Jenny Oropeza (CA, 2010; cancer)
Sen. Mario Gallegos (TX, 2012; liver disease)
Dennis Hof (NV, 2018; cause of death not yet reported)
The Nevada Independent
Hof ran for office as a self-proclaimed "Trump Republican" and stated that the president's 2016 win ignited his own desire for a career in politics. Similarities between the two run deep. Hof gained fame as a reality star on the long-running HBO documentary series Cathouse, which captured life at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, one of several legal brothels owned and operated by Hof. In 2015, he published a memoir titled "The Art of the Pimp," a clear homage to Trump's "The Art of the Deal." In it, Hof included a psychological profile by psychotherapist Dr. Sheenah Hankin, which categorizes Hof as a narcissist who abused the sex workers he employed.
Among the issues he championed were immigration reform, a repeal of Nevada's 2015 Commerce Tax, and a campus carry law that would allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring their weapons onto Nevada college and university campuses. He was endorsed by Roger Stone and Grover Norquist. In the 2018 primary elections, Hof beat incumbent James Oscarson by a mere 432 votes. Because he died within 60 days of the upcoming election, Hof remained on the ballot, though signs were posted at polling sites notifying voters of his death.
It seems as though these issues matter more than electing a living person to citizens of the 36th Assembly District. In fact, a 2013 study by Vanderbilt University found that, in lower-level elections, voters are most likely to elect the candidate with the highest name recognition.
The 36th Assembly District, which spans Clark, Lincoln, and Nye counties, has long been a GOP stronghold. Hof defeated Democrat Lesia Romanov, a first-time (living, breathing) candidate and lifetime educator who works as assistant principal of an elementary school for at-risk children. Romanov was impelled to run for office by a desire for common-sense gun reform following the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. Yet, too many of her constituents, upon discovering she was running against Hof, she became a de facto advocate for women, including "survivors of sex trafficking and exploited and abused brothel workers," according to NBC News. Romanov was among many women running for office in hopes of making Nevada's legislature the first to hold a female majority in the country.
As The Washington Post reported in 2014, there hasn't been an election with a dead person on the ballot in which the dead person lost. It's hard to determine what's more damning for American democracy: that voters are so divided that they're more likely to vote for a dead person than cross party lines or that they've been voting that way for years. At the same time, one might argue that giving Hof's seat to a living Republican (as appointed by county officials, according to state law) is a better outcome than if it'd gone to Hof himself, considering his history of sexual abuse allegations. The most preposterous indictment of the American political system is that although deceased candidates have been elected before, now the electorate could seemingly ask itself—in all seriousness—whether a dead serial abuser makes a better candidate than a living one. And no one seems to know the answer.
The National Importance of Massachusetts' Question 3
While the media is focused on which party will serve as the majority in the House and Senate after the midterm elections, voters in 37 states also have the opportunity to vote on more than 150 statewide measures. Important issues like marijuana, voting rights, fracking, abortion rights, and trans rights, are all on the table this election.
One of the most vital midterms measures is Massachusetts' question 3, a measure that could repeal the state's landmark 2016 transgender rights law. The law was an important milestone in the battle for much-needed protections for the transgender community, ensuring individuals could use public restrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identity, and generally exist in public spaces without fear of discrimination. It was passed with almost 90% support in the state senate and over 75% support in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, signed into law by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, and widely celebrated by a large range of LGBTQ+ business and civil rights groups, as well as New England's five major sports teams.
Governor Charlie BakerPolitico
The initiative to repeal this law is not the result of a movement by the people of MA, but rather the consequence of concerted efforts by a small, right-wing, Christian organization called the Massachusetts Family Institute and their allied organization Keep MA Safe. These critics say the law is "ripe for abuse," and could be taken advantage of by sex offenders entering women's bathrooms and dressing rooms with the aim of assaulting and harassing women and children. Debby Dugan, the chairwoman of Keep MA Safe, wrote in a Boston Globe piece last month that, "The way this law is written, an attempt to block someone who self-identifies as belonging in a women's locker room, dressing room, or bathroom — including convicted sex offenders — could result in penalties of up to a year in prison, and fines of up to $50,000 for multiple offenses."
Nation Builder
The law was written with the expectation of this argument from the opposition, and includes a provision by directing Attorney General Maura Healey, who wrote that if, "an employee of a public accommodation has reasonable grounds to believe that a person, regardless of gender identity, is engaged in improper or unlawful conduct, they should do whatever they would normally do to address the situation, including asking the patron to leave or calling security or law enforcement." This means a person will not be legally liable for discrimination if they intervene in a suspected sexual assault, as long as they had reasonable cause to believe intervention was necessary.
Despite this, critics tend to frame the conversation as though the law protects offenders from legal consequences. But as Justice Healey wrote, "This new law does not provide any protections for someone who engages in improper or unlawful conduct, whether in a sex-segregated facility or elsewhere, nor does it provide a defense to criminal charges brought against someone engaged in unlawful conduct." Also, as many supporters of the law have pointed out, if someone had the intention of doing something unlawful in a public restroom, it is unlikely they would be deterred by gendered bathrooms in the first place.
It's difficult to believe that the people behind Keep MA Safe are actually concerned about the safety of Americans, given the lack of evidence that there is any correlation between assaults and trans rights laws, and the ample evidence that the trans community is constantly at risk of violence and harassment. The sex offender centered argument is a thinly veiled excuse for bigotry, as assault and harassment, regardless of the spaces they occur in, are illegal in the state of Massachusetts, and this law does nothing to change that. Additionally, the anti-discrimination law has been endorsed by the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association and the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence.
Healey's office noted that in the 18 other states with transgender anti-discrimination laws, reports of "improper assertion[s] of gender identity have been exceedingly rare." In June, Rep. Joe Kennedy III told Boston.com that there is "not one single incident that they can point to of any sort of assault or danger that's taken place as a result [of the law]". Researchers at the Williams Institute — a think tank at the UCLA School of Law that focuses on sexual orientation and gender identity law — backed up Kennedy's assertions, announcing that they found no correlation between the passage of the 2016 law in Massachusetts and any change in the "number or frequency of criminal incidents in restrooms, locker rooms or changing rooms."
According to Logan Nelson, a transgender Massachusetts resident, the assertion that sex offenders may pretend to be transgender is absurd. "All I want to do is f*cking pee. The claim that sex offenders will pretend to be transgender is just wildly offensive and inaccurate. You can't 'pretend' to be transgender. Wearing different clothing doesn't make you transgender. The whole thing is essentially just an attack and there has been no aggression from the trans community that warrants this. All it is, is a hate infused attack. And of course, trans women of color already have the highest mortality rate in the trans community, so this is forcing them even further into extinction."
While it is clear that the law does not offer any protection for sexual assailants or others who would seek to act unlawfully, it does offer vital protections for Transgender individuals. The National Center for Transgender Equality reports that "more than one in four trans people has faced a bias-driven assault, and rates are higher for trans women and trans people of color." Additionally, the Human Rights Campaign has reported 22 deaths due to fatal violence against transgender people in 2018 so far, most recently the death of Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier on Oct. 3. Despite these harrowing statistics, the Trump administration has made discrimination against the transgender community a part of their agenda, aiming to define gender based on anatomy at birth and exclude non-cisgender individuals from legal protections.
Fortune
In part because of Trump's harmful rhetoric, even if Massachusetts voters vote to keep the law, there is much work to be done in terms of providing transgender individuals with the rights and protection they deserve. As Mr. Nelson went on to say, "I'm not gonna stop using the bathroom. You know, cause I'm a human being who has to shit sometimes. And even without question 3, I still feel unsafe in bathrooms. I always have. Part of the trans experience is not having your rights respected or heard until they're in question. I have always felt unsafe and I will continue to. All this Question 3 stuff does is highlight the fact that Americans don't want transgender people to exist, that there are so few of us that the 'majority' (cisgender women and girls, men) matter more, and that there is zero education and cultural competency training in regard to gender in politics, the education system, and in popular culture."
While there is alway more work to be done in protecting trans Americans from systemic discrimination and violence, the outcome of Massachusetts vote on question 3 will have heavy implications for the rest of the country. If the referendum is successful in repealing the law — an unprecedented outcome in measures of this nature — supporters say a dangerous precedent could be set for other, less-liberal states where laws against discrimination on the basis of gender identity have been passed. In an America where division is actively encouraged by the President, it is important now more than ever to safeguard the legal protections of at risk communities. While we urge Massachusetts voters to vote "yes" on question 3, it's equally important for all Americans to continue to work to be better allies to the entire LBGTQ+ community.
Brooke Ivey Johnson is a Brooklyn based writer, playwright, and human woman. To read more of her work visit her blog or follow her twitter @BrookeIJohnson.
