 Singapore has secured the exclusive rights to host Taylor Swift's concerts in Southeast Asia, which is making Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia kind of pissed off. Hey, why so mad? It's just Taylor Swift. It's not talking about nuclear bombs, okay? But people are taking this very serious right now. Taylor Swift almost has the impact of a nuclear bomb in a different way. Listen, guys, the prime minister of Singapore just had to come out and say, hey, this was not a hostile act towards our neighbours. I don't know what to tell you guys. This is just business. Let's run the clip. Well, Taylor Swift is performing in Singapore. We negotiated our agencies, negotiated an arrangement with her to come to Singapore and perform, and to make Singapore her only stop in Southeast Asia. And there was a certain incentives provided to her from our Tourism Development Fund, really is a post-COVID fund, to revive tourism after COVID. And a deal was reached to get an outcome, which is mutually beneficial, and which from Singapore's point of view serves not just to grow the economy, but also to bring in visitors and goodwill from all over the region. I don't see why not. So basically, David, what's going on is that Taylor Swift is performing in Southeast Asia, but her only stop is Singapore. Right. She's going to do six shows in Singapore. The Singapore government gave her a grant 3 million on top of whatever she's going to make extra. So an extra 18 million dollars. And basically it was like, yo, you don't have to go anywhere else in Southeast Asia. Give us the exclusive rights. Right. But she has a ton of fans in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, obviously she has fans all over the world. She'd probably sell out in any stadium in any of those countries, but she's only performing in Singapore, meaning that everyone else, all the Swifties from other countries have to go to Singapore. Right. But it is true that Singapore has, in recent decades, had that status in Southeast Asia. They're going to hold all the conferences there, the economic forums in Singapore as well. Here's the thing, Andrew. In East Asia, she's only performing in Tokyo, well in Japan in general. All over Japan. Right. So basically she's only in Japan in Singapore. Those are the two countries with the respective highest GDPs per capita in the region. Right. Right. Right. So anyways, guys, we're going to get into it. There is some controversy, but I don't know. Maybe we'll try to make sense of it all. So please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hop Hop Boys. I had no idea Taylor Swift was going to cause geopolitical risks. To be honest, I'm not saying I didn't know she was huge. This is on a whole nother level. When she goes to a city, even in America, she changes the vibe for that weekend. No. All police are on call. Yeah. Like they all get called in to manage the city. Exactly. Exactly. Like it's an insanely huge event. It is a record-breaking tour. She's doing crazy numbers. I think the most profitable tour of all time of any artists. And yeah, it's just like, it means a lot because basically what's going to happen if she holds it in a country is that that country is going to make more money and it's going to stimulate a whole bunch of movement in the country, a lot of hotels, a lot of restaurants, just a lot of like transportation and things like that. But it's like hosting the Super Bowl. Yeah. It's like hosting the Olympics like for a weekend, essentially. But it's kind of, but that means it's a lot to handle. And I think the argument is that people are saying is that Singapore has all the systems, the infrastructure, the security, the cleanliness, and the money to give her extra. Singapore is kind of like the Japan of Southeast Asia. And Japan is just the Japan of the world. Right. No. Let's be honest. I'm going to keep it real. I've been around to a lot of different countries. Very few countries run as on point as Japan in Singapore. Yeah. I mean, listen, there's beautiful parts of Indonesia and the Philippines and Malaysia. We've all visited that. But yeah, I mean, Singapore is like when you go there, it's like super, super clean and super secure. Let's get into the comments section said, somebody said, I don't see anything wrong with it. They're just being competitive in the interests of their own country. And somebody else can't say, huh? What? You want to be greedy? Huh? Greedy Singapore? Yeah. So I guess they're calling Singapore greedy because Singapore, because they're imagining that Singapore is like, you know what, we got to take Taylor Swift from everywhere else and she can only perform here. That's it. Yeah. All the richest people from your country are going to have to come to us. Yeah. I do think it's a money thing. And obviously, Taylor Swift, she doesn't go on, she didn't go on tour for like charity, all right? So she needs, she's going to make money. But I think that it is a, to be honest, like a safety concern in other countries. Well, yeah, I mean, you have to make sure that the safety, the security, the movement, the transportation can all be sustained without a traffic jam. And a little anybody, little girl getting run over by a motor, I mean, like, I'm just, I loved my time in the Philippines, but even when we were there in a car, there was like traffic jams and it was a super congested city. So just from a traffic standpoint, I can imagine that if Taylor Swift comes to Manila, then the whole city's going to stop. Yeah, it's going to be in a bad way, probably, to be honest. Somebody said, this is what a international professor of relations said in Australia. Yeah, it's really nice to see those countries in the region arguing about something fun, I guess, instead of really deeply difficult things, because they're all really big differences between those countries. But it does show you that there's some tensions and jealousy and rivalry. Is that what this is really all about, Andrew? Singapore is the rich kid in Southeast Asia. Right. By far. It's true. I don't even think it's even close. No, it's like the gated community of your city. Right. And of course, they're going to get everything in just the Taylor Swift is she's almost a symbol of this great Americana that a lot of people thought disappeared in the 1970s, but she's bringing it back. And you know what I mean, like, I feel like Taylor represents like the America glory days of old. Yeah, she's kind of the princess. Well, we say what America sweetheart. So I guess, does it just show the differences in security and infrastructure? And then it's almost like someone in people's faces like we got the Michael Jackson of 2024. Yeah, I mean, is it jealousy? Listen, I don't, I'm not like an expert on the Southeast Asian geopolitics. Obviously, there's some feelings from a lot of other Southeast Asian countries being like, Oh, how come they don't, how can we can't have nice things? Or how can we can't have Taylor Swift come to our country? It would benefit us. We do need like the boost in economy and profile tourism and Singapore standing on our way. Well, it's not just Singapore's decision. Taylor Swift's teams decided on it. So think about it, guys, like you want to get, I'm not saying Taylor Swift only cares about money. I'm actually not saying that because I'm think I think there's they understand that when she comes to town, there's a lot of and she has a lot of young girl fans. There's a lot of young women moving around the city and that's already a security concern in itself. Andrew, there is a Chinese saying it takes two hands to clap. I mean, this is a pretty common saying in a cross cultures, right? But basically, yeah, I mean, I think Taylor Swift, she made a decision to. But of course, Andrew, nobody's going to go against Taylor. Yeah. Yeah. I think that calling Singapore greedy is simplified. I mean, no doubt that you have to care about making money to become like Singapore. But this is just like even just this is just not for any other reason, but possibly a logistics reason. Right. Somebody was saying in America, she would only do a gigantic stadium. She wouldn't perform at the country fair either. Yeah, because that's not secure and there's no infrastructure for that. How are you going to get people in and out? How are you going to check people in? How are you going to keep it safe? Not just for Taylor fans and mostly the I would say the people departing, especially if the thing runs late in the night. I mean, listen, guys, I'm not going to lie. There were some other crazy discussions saying, you know, other countries may have religious conservatism. They don't like her outfits. They may not like some of her support. That's true to other issues and other like related to it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate that, you know, if you live in a country that you don't like the government of, obviously, there's a lot of governments in this world that a lot of people don't like that they have to live under. But I'm saying like that's unfortunate. But yeah, your government is going to also decide that. So if your government officials don't like Taylor Swift or don't want to deal with them, they don't like her outfit. Yeah, they don't even like her what she stands for because she stands for America. You know, she's essentially like a walking, beautiful American flag at this point. Travis Kelsey is going to Singapore to hang out with her while she's doing her shows out there. The Super Bowl buff bearded, was he a tight end? Yeah. He's going to Singapore to spend time with his American queen, Princess. Yeah, this is like, I don't even know who this was in America. This is like Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe going over from like 1950s. This is white American royalty. Okay. Right. Right. They're going to Singapore. So while I understand, I think other countries would deserve a chance. And I think other people do go to other countries. You just think about literally what Taylor Swift's concerts do to her amount of fans. And yeah, it's kind of crazy thing to deal with. Yeah, it's very, very interesting. Let us know what you guys think in the comment section below. Man, a lot of interesting thoughts just from Taylor Swift getting geopolitical in Asia. Hey, you can't have Taylor Swift, but you could fly the Fung Bros out. We'll go to, I'll go to Malaysia, Thailand or Philippines. Let's go. Dude, I just read this article about this girl in Tokyo who booked all four nights for the Tokyo dome and quit her job in Fukuoka just so she could go to the Taylor Swift concert. I'm just saying that she got some super duper fans. Well, I don't know if her family got money and maybe she doesn't need that job, but Taylor Swift should give her a shout out. What is it about Taylor Swift? Let us know in the comment section below because she's literally got presidents and prime ministers commenting on the heiress tour. Let us know in the comment section. Until next time, be the hot pop boys. Be out. Peace.