The Dictatorship
Taylor Swift’s album announcement signals the end of an era for Swifties
Taylor Swift’s announcement Tuesday that she’d soon be releasing her 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” came as a very welcome surprise to her massive fan base. What was less appreciated by some fans like myself, though, was the way the news was delivered: not through the star’s famously subtle clues and carefully planted Easter eggs, but via a direct, clear-cut statement on a popular podcast.
The buzz began Monday when Taylor Nation, Swift’s management team, posted 12 photos of the musician on Instagram in orange outfits with the caption, “Thinking about when she said ‘See you next era…’”
Later in the day, Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and his brother Jason teased “a VERY special guest” on their popular podcast “New Heights” with a silhouette fans quickly deduced to be Swift, in posts commented on by her label Republic Records, among others. And in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, the “New Heights” team confirmed the rumor by releasing a clip of the singer on the podcast, during which she took out a briefcase emblazoned with her initials and opened it to reveal a (cover-obscured) record. “This is my brand-new album, ‘The Life of a Showgirl,’” Swift said. Soon after, her website was updated to feature versions of the release available for preorder.
As a passionate and longtime Swiftie, I’m thrilled by the news, and I know I’ll be lapping up every shred of info about the album that’s delivered before its as-yet-unknown release date. But I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed that “The Life of a Showgirl” was announced in such a straightforward way.
Since Swift’s earliest days of success, much of her most important pieces of news — album drops, song titles, tour dates — have been revealed via elaborate Easter eggs that’ve often eluded casual fans but thrilled her most ardent supporters. It’s a fun challenge to spot and then decode the clueswhich have ranged from nail polish in a music video signifying the color scheme of her then-next album “Lover” to a watch choker necklace set to 3:15, aka March 15, the date “The Eras Tour” film came out on Disney+.
Since her record-breaking “Eras Tour” caused Swift’s popularity to skyrocket, the musician has increasingly relied less on Easter eggs and more on direct statements to spread hype and deliver news.
Even when we’ve wrongly assumed something benign is a purposeful hint and been proven otherwise (an act lovingly known as “clowning” in the Swiftiverse), the communal journey of overanalyzing details and positing theories — however far-fetched — has become a core part of the Swiftie fandom.
And it hasn’t just bonded her followers; Swift herself has said that she feels her subtle messages “expand the experience” of audiences appreciating her art, and she has complimented eagle-eyed fans for their guesswork on numerous occasions. Over the years, the search for clues has created a unique intimacy between Swift and her most loyal base, while also helping to build excitement around her upcoming projects.
Prior to the 2019 release of “Lover,” for instance, fans spent days combing through her “ME!” music video to find the album and single titles after a hint from the star, even correctly predicting the day she officially announced the album based on a wax seal in a calendar sold on her site.
Yet in the last few years, since her record-breaking “Eras Tour” caused Swift’s popularity to skyrocket, the musician has increasingly relied less on Easter eggs and more on direct statements to spread hype and deliver news. In some ways, the change is understandable. With more people dissecting her every move than ever before, it’s become near-impossible for that once-intimate connection between Swift and her biggest fans to remain intact. Any seemingly mysterious clue is deciphered within moments and spread across the internet, removing any element of suspense and taking the fun out of the search. Plus, the now-huge size of the star’s following has led to an abundance of overtly ridiculous theories flooding the fan space, which often overshadow the actually worthwhile guesses and can feel like cringey plays for virality.
To be clear, it’s not that Swift has moved away from Easter eggs completely. After Tuesday’s album announcement, many fans revisited several details in her recent posts and outfits that now appear to have been clues about “Showgirl.” But regardless, the fact that the only actual information about the record released so far has come from Swift’s own mouth while sitting on one of the world’s most popular podcasts is quite telling, as is the lack of buildup time between Taylor Nation’s “See you next era” tease and the “New Heights” clip. While I have no doubt that the singer’s appreciation for her fans hasn’t wavered despite her career growth, her method of communicating with us unfortunately has.
I don’t blame Swift for this change, and my qualms about the podcast announcement don’t overshadow my enthusiasm for her new music. I’ll be singing along to “Showgirl” just as loudly as all my fellow Swifties. I just hope that if I know any titles or lyrics in advance, it’ll be because I’ve had to search for them rather than getting them fed right to me.
Rachel Simon is a writer and editor based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of “Pickleball for All: Everything but the ‘Kitchen’ Sink.”Her work has been published in The New York Times, Glamour, Vulture, Teen Vogue and more. You can find her at @rsimon113.