Taylor Swift dropped her new single, “ME!,” at midnight on Friday, and it’s simultaneously exactly what fans expected and nothing at all. The song is large, colorful, and fun—the polar opposite of her last lead single, “Look What You Made Me Do.” And the same thing can be said for the music video, which dropped alongside the song.
It’s quite literally an explosion of glitter, rainbows, and happiness. At one point, Swift’s dancing in the street with dozens of women in matching pastel suits. Later, she’s doing choreography with Brendon Urie (who’s featured on “ME!”) outside an Oz-like utopia. Butterflies, unicorns, and hearts are literally everywhere. Swift’s cats even make an appearance. The video is joyous, simply put, and heavily-inspired by Lisa Frank, as far as I’m concerned.
With so much sensory overload, though, you may have missed a few Easter eggs Swift planted in the video. The pop singer is famous for injecting hidden meanings and “clues” into her work, and this video is chock-full of them. Below, check out all the ones fans are currently buzzing about.
Toward the end of the clip, Swift is wearing cowboy boots as she dances with Urie. This could potentially be hinting at a return to her country roots with #TS7.
There’s a photo of the iconic girl group on the wall at the beginning of the video. Even more evidence Country Taylor is coming. Fingers crossed for a collab.
This word is written in large, neon letters and planted in the middle of the video. So obviously we’re getting a song called “Lover.” Or maybe that’s the album title.
Olivia and Meredith co-starred with their mom!
Swift said in her YouTube Q&A there’s a secret in her video she’s been keeping for months. Could this new cat be what (or who) she was hiding?
Swift infamously said, “I’m sorry, the Old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead” in “Look What You Made Me Do.” But on “ME!” she doesn’t have the same hang-up (pun intended).
A not-so-subtle nod to this being her seventh studio album.
She turns into a bunch of butterflies at the top of the video. The old aesthetic is gone, and a new one is here.
Swift shouts this during the song’s bridge. Fun fact: Swift actually competed in spelling bees as a child.
It’s April. Why is there a Christmas tree in Swift’s video? Maybe it’s a reference to the fact she grew up on a Christmas tree farm.
Let’s get to the good stuff. When the shot of Urie and Swift in marching band outfits goes wide toward the end of the video, we see they’re outside a dreamlike, hybrid city of London and the United States. Specifically, we see the Capitol Building and Parliament, a.k.a where laws are made in both countries. Perhaps this is hinting that Swift and her British boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, will be merging their lives soon.
So maybe this is her way of denouncing all the rumors she and Alwyn are headed for an engagement.
You’ve done it again, Taylor Swift. Now I’ll be obsessively analyzing this video for the next three days.
