“I love to communicate via Easter eggs…I think the best messages are cryptic ones.” – Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is known by her fandom for foreshadowing her next era or album through the use of small hints or clues. These hints can be as obvious as a lyric in a song or as dismissive as the color of her nail polish.

While the Swifties have become experts in uncovering such cues, to the average person, they may be harder to decipher. For example, take a look at the image below. What Easter eggs, if any, do you notice? What do you think they mean?

To name a few, the “Calm” pin and the rainbow heart pin are a reference to the Lover album single “You Need to Calm Down,” which had yet to be released at the time of the Entertainment Tonight shoot. Next, the “Dixie Chicks” pin is a nod toward the future Lover song “Soon You’ll Get Better” that features the band. Third, the pins of characters from the show “Friends” are also referencing a to-be-released song, “It’s Nice to Have a Friend.” Further, to see if you got other pins correct click here.

As you can see, Taylor’s attention to detail is immersive and deliberate. There is little to no aspects of her media presence that aren’t planned out ahead of time to foreshadow new music or projects.

Most recently, Taylor has been re-recording her discography that she doesn’t own the Masters too (shoutout Scooter Braun). And for Easter eggs, this means that Swift has been dropping all kinds of clues in her social media posts about the order in which she is re-recording the albums, when the singles are going to come out, and what songs will be on the track list.

Red (Taylor’s Version) comes out on November 12th, and in accordance, Taylor chose to release the list of new songs making an appearance on the album through a cryptic word scramble.

Dare to give it a try? The revealed tracks are here.

*presses post*
*cackles maniacally*

Level: casually cruel in the name of being honest pic.twitter.com/Tf0ahCMql8

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 5, 2021

To conclude, I leave you with the most recent Red (TV) egg, a Tumblr video of Taylor gushing about fall. This video has sent the entire fandom into an investigative frenzy, will you join them in solving the puzzle?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

If you figure it out, feel free to comment your thoughts below and be sure to…

Tell Me Why.

Taylor Swift has a whopping 182 million followers on Instagram and she has showed us time and time again that she intends to use her platform for good.

The pop-star had originally been quiet about her political pursuits until October 2018, when she crafted a post for Instagram speaking out upon the midterm elections and bashed, then representative of Tennessee, Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s voting record.

Swift continued stating “I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.”

Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, were personally offended by Taylor’s new involvement in politics, with Trump telling reporters he likes Taylor Swift’s music “about 25% less now.”

But that did not stop Taylor. She continued her political pursuits in another post endorsing candidate Phil Bredesen for the U.S. Senate, in an attempt to flip a seat from red to blue. She told her following “we want leadership, not fear-based extremism” and to “please don’t sit this [election] out.”

Putting these words into action, Swift inserted links to register to vote and to learn more about other states’ elections in her instagram bio, posted to alert followers that early voting has kicked off in most states, and even vowed to repost some of her fans on her story if they voted early.

Furthermore, these efforts resulted in a skyrocket of young voter registration. In the first 24 hours immediately following her post, 65,000 Americans ages 18 to 29 registered to vote. And by Tuesday, this number increased to more than 102,000.

Taylor did not give up after 2018 either. Around October of 2020, Taylor took to instagram to show her support for the Democrats presidential candidate, Joe Biden, and his vice presidential nomination, Kamala Harris.

Taylor Swift knows she carries an immense platform of impressionable fans, so she has decided to use it to get younger generations more involved in politics and the ongoings 0f daily government. Unlike other celebrities who take advantage of their demographic to sell the newest detox tea or promote the latest dieting trick, this is a pop-star who is making real change in the world through social media.

Whether you support her views and opinions or not, one cannot deny the statistics and immeasurable impact Swift had on voter registration in 2018. As Taylor’s posts have proved, celebrities purvey power and influence over their audiences. And, arguably, they need to follow in Swift’s footsteps and use their stardom to encourage positive behavior that changes the world.

We don’t need another waist trainer. We need more voters.

Long Story Short… Vote.

“Live out a narrative that we find interesting enough to entertain us, but not so crazy that it makes us uncomfortable.” – Taylor Swift on the Media

Taylor Swift is known for her reinvention of herself through eras of her music, of which she says is necessary or you are out of a job. She says female artists are “constantly finding new facets of (their)self that people find to be shiny.”

Contrary to the past two weeks’ entries, Taylor’s Reputation Era has not been the only time she’s drastically reinvented herself. We have talked about her multitude of eras that coordinate with her albums, but what we have not touched on is the way in which these eras coincide with the media’s perception of her.

In Swift’s first 4 albums, she writes and sings songs that depend heavily on her personal experiences with heartbreak. And for the first 6 years of her career, the media portrayed her as an innocent, young teenager obsessed with serial-dating boys and writing songs about them as revenge when things don’t work out.

These first years were critical to not only the way the world would view Taylor as an artist, but to how she viewed herself. From being portrayed as this “good girl” from the start of her career, Swift felt the need to be the person “everyone wanted (her) to be.” Accordingly, this inner desire explains as to why Taylor continued her heartbreak streak for so many albums.

Alternatively, with her 5th studio album “1989,” Swift chose to go with a different persona. Journalists critique’s of her breakup-oriented songs and portrayal of her as “red flag” for men pushed her to focus her next album on moving to a new city and spending time with her friends, even switching her genre to pop.

However, the media was still unsatisfied with her, arguing that now she posts too much and talks too much about her friends. Additionally, claims came out believing Swift to be a manipulator and accusing her of always playing the victim.

At this point, Taylor realized that the media is not satisfied with her reinventions and instead, solved the problem by disappearing from the limelight before her Rep era comeback, where she got to do it all again.

Re-Invent. New Album. Silence. Repeat.

Ever since the age of fourteen, Taylor has been living her life like this. And now, at thirty-one, she has decided that it’s not fair. Even as she has truly become the media’s chameleon, changing her looks and personality to match the headline of the day, Swift recognizes that this isn’t a feasible job for any woman to maintain.

And while mutating eras is a great way to promote new music, no woman should have to choose between alternating who they really are for the media and unemployment.

But some still may ask, who is the real Taylor Swift? The Hopeless Romantic? The Pop Princess? The Lying Snake?

In the end, follow the words of Taylor, herself, and Call It What You Want…

“There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame… you’ll know that it was you and the people who you love that put you there.” – Taylor Swift (Album of the Year, 2016)

In 2016, Taylor Swift had her fair share of media attention whether it be her breakup, the rekindling of her feud with Kanye West, or the nationwide fight for recognition of her work. Arguably, this was the year of Taylor Swift and would be pivotal to her interactions with the media and how she would continue to separate her work and personal life.

Since 2015, Swift had been connected to Calvin Harris in a very “Instagramable,” public relationship.  She posted vacations photos with him, thanked him in award recipient speeches, and celebrated a one-year anniversary. However, swift eventually ends her relationship with Harris by the beginning of June and begins seeing Tom Hiddleston, who she eventually would leave later than year, calling him her “Getaway Car” from a toxic relationship.

Nevertheless, the DJ reappeared in Swift’s life in July when it was released that she actually wrote his hit song with Rihanna, “This is What You Came For.” And through a Twitter rampage, Calvin attacked Swift, claiming she was trying to “bury” him and incited multiple celebrities to get involved on the “I Hate Taylor Swift” campaign.

Hopping on this campaign was Kim Kardashian, promoting a GQ interview where she spoke on Kanye’s controversial lyrics in his song, “”I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/I made that bitch famous.

(Keep in mind, Kanye previously interrupted Taylor’s VMA acceptance speech years ago to say she didn’t deserve it)

In her interview, Kim claims there was indeed an, albeit illegally recorded, phone call where Kanye received Swift’s approval to allude to herself in “Famous.” Prior to, Taylor’s team had been publicly outraged over the sexualization of the popstar, going so far as to call it “revenge porn.”

The final straw was drawn in July when Kim posted the video of Taylor approving the lyrics. The internet went wild, with Kardashian fans filling Swift’s comment sections with snakes and creating a trending hashtag #KimExposedTaylorParty.

With both these public posts, Calvin and Kim started war, with celebrities sub-tweeting and liking tweets taking sides with either Kanye or Taylor. On top of all this, Scooter Braun has manager-like links to Kanye that deepened his personal feud with Taylor by encouraging this portrayal of her.

But who made her famous?

When it comes down to history, Taylor Swift brought Calvin’s song into the top hits, Tom’s name into headlines, Kim’s cover into the attention of the media, and Kanye’s song into relevancy. Undoubtedly, it is Taylor Swift who not only is to credit for her own fame but, the fame of all of these celebrities. Without her brand name attached to their songs or tweets, they would have never achieved the level of headlines and success they did.

Taylor would go on to add these celebrities to her “list,” their names in red, underlined.

And the world moved on, another day another drama.