Taylor Swift is death! But you thought it was a joke. Vengeful lyricist and a pro at image reinvention; her new, darker, self-satirizing persona makes that abundantly clear. The singer, who dropped the music video for her scathing new single “Look What You Made Me Do” at Sunday night’s VMAs, hid numerous details in plain sight for her fans to see, interpret and discuss.
1. The Nils Sjoberg tombstone in the opening scene. As many will remember, Nils Sjoberg was the pseudonym that Swift used for a songwriting credit on her ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris’ 2016 summer hit, “This Is What You Came For.” When it was revealed that Swift was, in fact, the creative mind behind the single, some short-lived drama ensued, with Harris slamming his ex and bringing up her ongoing beef with Katy Perry.
2. The “Out of the Woods” dress. When the music video opens, Swift bursts through the ground of a graveyard as a fully fledged zombie – wearing the iconic blue dress from her “Out of the Woods” music video. It’s notable that the video for her fairytale-inspired single was the last from her 1989 era, possibly indicating from the get-go that that era is done for good now. (Zombie Taylor is also a nice tribute to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video.)
3. The 2014 Met Gala dress. Similarly, the Swift lying prone in the grave is wearing the very Oscar de la Renta gown that
4. The single dollar bill in a bathtub full of diamonds. Swift’s decision to bathe in jewels and not money – but to feature a single dollar bill just beyond her right shoulder – was a very calculated one. Fans speculate that the single bill represents the $1 she was awarded after she won her sexual assault case against former radio DJ David Mueller.
13. She quotes some of her most headline-making moments. The multiple Swift clones that stand on the airplane tarmac all begin to squabble with each other during the last 40 seconds of the music video, with several of the Swift personas reciting some now-familiar lines, like “I’d very much like to be excluded from this narrative,” referencing a line from her scathing response to her feud with West and wife Kim Kardashian over his hit “Famous.”