In this day and age, celebrities have a lot of influence over our politics. Garthwaite and Moore estimated that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of B

Finding Shawn Mendes

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2021-07-21 16:30:08

In this day and age, celebrities have a lot of influence over our politics. Garthwaite and Moore estimated that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008 netted him an extra 1 million votes [1]. More recently, an Instagram post by Taylor Swift led over 160,000 Americans to register to vote prior to the 2018 midterm elections [2]. With the advent of social media, we have an ever increasing need to know celebrities’ opinions on the political issue of the day. Celebrities by and large have obliged — but with notable exceptions.

Shawn Mendes is a pop singer/songwriter from Canada who became famous several years ago. If you’re anything like me, you wake up every morning, thinking to yourself, “What is Shawn Mendes’ position on the Kuril Islands territorial dispute between Japan and Russia?” You try Googling the “Shawn Mendes Kuril Islands” — but alas, just like on every previous morning, you fail to find a public statement from Mendes on the issue. Indeed, as far as I can tell, Mendes has never publicly stated his position on the dispute.

Well, lucky you: I believe I may have found out Mendes’ opinion, cryptically hidden in his 2018 single “Lost in Japan” [3].

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