The Art of the Clown

Photo by Vidal Balielo Jr. on  Pexels

I only recently became a Swiftie. My journey began after my daughter and husband came back from an exhilarating experience watching Taylor live at Gillette Stadium. Once I watched the Eras Tour movie, I was hooked.

But it wasn’t until I started to fall into the deep and labyrinthine well of Swift easter eggs that I fully began to “clown” for Swift. What is a Taylor Swift easter egg, you ask? Well, it’s the maddening clues, and many red herrings, that Swift leaves in her songs, videos, and even the clothes and jewelry that she wears at events and in paparazzi shots. Who knew that the dark academia vibe of the plaid miniskirts and cozy sweaters that she was suddenly wearing everywhere presaged the theme of her newest release, The Tortured Poets Department?

The easter eggs are so subtle and blatant and so rife with misdirection that millions of fans can’t help but go down a million rabbit holes as they try to determine when she will finally announce the release date of Reputation, Taylor’s Version. Surely the hands of the clock in the cappuccino foam in that video mean something, right? Just like the clock she wore as a choker to the Grammys. If I turned my head just so, I could make out the time, and it surely is an easter egg…but for what?

This concerted effort to decipher all of these clues and wade through the deliberate misdirection and then to confidently announce a prediction is called, “clowning.”

I will admit that I started to clown just as hard as any Swiftie as I started to feel sure that she would announce the release of her Reputation version during the final Wembley concert, the concert that would end the European leg of her tour.

Of course, Ms. Swift will almost never do what the clowns in her following predict, and that is where we sadly place the red clown nose over our own noses and then begin the next hunt for when we think she’ll announce her new album.

The great thing about clowning, though, is that Swift knows that her fans love the mystery hunt. She may not follow fan theories about when she’ll announce a specific album, but she will very often reward clowns with fun surprises anyway. 

And Wembley Night 8 of the Eras Tour was no exception. During that concert, she unveiled an entirely new TTPD set piece, “Florida,” with Florence Welch at her side. She ended the concert with the first live viewing of her newest music video, “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart.”

So, this clown was still satisfied even though I was not right about my prediction that she would surely announce RepTV tonight. And, this clown has already adjusted her clown nose to look forward to the final nights of the DNC convention in Chicago. Surely, Swift choose to post a photo that has one of her dancers looking suspiciously like Kamala Harris as a nod to her appearing at the DNC to support Kamala, right?