Watch: Taylor Swift hits out at detractors in new video – and finds it’s become an alt-right anthem
This can’t have been what the singer had in mind.
Hitting out at the controversies popstar Taylor Swift has found herself surrounded by in the last few years, her latest music video Look What You Made Me Do does all the talking. The Joseph Kahn directed visual piece, which became the biggest debut for any video after gaining 43.2 million views in one day, has her lashing out at her detractors as she discards her older avatars for a snarky new one.
The track opens in a graveyard, and the light shines on a tombstone that reads “Here lies Taylor Swift’s reputation”, with a zombified Swift theatrically spewing venom:
“I don’t like your little games,
don’t like your tilted stage.
The role you made me play
of the fool, no, I don’t like you.”
The darkly catchy song featuring slithering snakes, from the album Reputation, is brimming with references to all the rows Swift has had with fellow singers, her exes, music streaming services, and the media. As her older avatars grovel at her feet – the lovesick country singer, the one dressed as a white swan from Shake It Off, the innocent, naive Swift in her pyjamas – the “new” Swift declares them all dead. Finally, they all appear in front of an airplane with “Reputation” emblazoned across it, repeating the lines people have said about her: “There she goes, playing the victim again,” says one, and “You are so fake,” while another wilfully announces, “I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.”
However, the video has created its own controversy. In spite of its groundbreaking popularity, it has been labelled an unofficial anthem for the alt-right, neo-Nazi community. Conspiracy theories have been floating around the internet saying Swift is a secret Trump supporter and a closeted white supremacist. Several other ludicrous theories have also cropped up that suggest she could be anything from a reptilian mother, and a satanic snake worshipper to a clone of herself.