Taylor Swift casually took down all her Instagram posts?
Taylor Swift has been laying low ever since mid-2016, when her laughable showmance with Tom Hiddleston collided with a masterful doxxing by Kim Kardashian and she became kiiiiind of a national laughing stock.
But now, it looks like she’s about to come back. Why? Because she just took down every single one of her Instagram posts. She also got rid of her IG bio and unfollowed everyone.
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(I’m using “she” as a metonym for the Taylor Swift corporation, by the way. There’s no chance Taylor the person physically did the deletions, she probs had her assistant’s assistant’s assistant’s second intern do it.)
So what is the meaning of this?
Well, we all know people only delete Instagram posts when they are either 1. embarrassed by their past actions/outfits/filter choices or 2. about to heavily rebrand. Chances are, Taylor Swift has deleted her entire feed for both these reasons.
Taylor’s brand until now can be summed up as “uber-capitalist faux nice girl.” She used her bland all-American skinny blonde vibes to play the permanent victim, claiming she’s been tortured by everyone from grade school bullies (who hasn’t, b?) to Kanye West.
But as it became more and more obvious that Taylor Swift is a marketing genius with a knack for making money to rival that of any finance bro, the whole innocent victim thing stopped working. I mean really, who could ever buy that this megarich six-foot-tall conventionally attractive musically talented white cisgender daughter of a banker had ever faced any hardship? “She’s cheer captain and I’m in the bleachers”? Yeah right, babe.
Taylor’s façade started to crack when the general public was less than charmed by her high-profile rebound romance with Tom Hiddleston and the staged photo ops that went with it (matching outfits, y’all). It seemed so engineered to boost both of their images that people couldn’t help but roll their eyes.
READ ALSO: Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston decided to wear matching outfits in Australia
Then, Kim Kardashian basically nuked Taylor’s shot at maintaining her victim brand by leaking phone messages that proved she was lying about not having given Kanye West permission to mention her in his song “Famous.” Taylor had told him it was okay to name her in the song, but when the song came out, she’d pretended to be horrified and milked the public’s sympathy for all it was worth.
And the final nail in the coffin for Taylor Swift 1.0 was the 2016 presidential election. As celebrities chose up sides and largely declared their allegiance to Hillary Clinton in an effort to ensure our country didn’t slide into fascism, Taylor stayed silent. She posted a photo of herself on the way to the voting booth, but failed to say who she was supporting.
As previously mentioned, Taylor is a megarich white cisgender daughter of a banker. She excels at making money and she’s a shrewd businesswoman. So it’s not insane to think she might secretly be a Republican, or worse, a Trump supporter. Either way, despite her massive platform, she’s stayed completely silent on politics. A lot of people might find that problematic from someone who enjoys a massive female fandom while women’s rights are under siege.
So Taylor’s original brand had to go. It’s no surprise she’s deleted or archived all of her Instagram posts and is hoping to start fresh. Now that Katy Perry has finally stopped torturing us with “Witness” promo, it’s the perfect time for Taylor to recalibrate her persona and start fresh.
In fact, Katy Perry’s botched promo cycle was probably the biggest bright spot in Taylor Swift the Corporation’s year. Katy made herself look like a complete lunatic by dropping Taylor’s name in countless interviews and refusing to let their beef go. She released a diss track about Taylor that was three years too late, sonically forgettable and overshadowed by controversy. (The Nicki Minaj verse still bangs, though.) Through all this, Taylor managed to stay silent.
But she pulled the ultimate power move by releasing her entire back catalog on streaming services the same weekend as “Witness” dropped. Her old albums out-streamed Katy’s brand new one and even the biggest haters among us had a new respect for Taylor.
Not to mention, she absolutely killed it at her recent sexual assault trial. Not only did she win the case, but she got major props from the media and the public for sticking up for herself and holding a criminal accountable.
READ ALSO: Taylor Swift isn’t taking any sh*t at her butt-grabbing trial
So it’s anyone’s guess what Taylor’s new persona will look like. Hopefully, she’ll finally lean into her type-A boss bitch ways and stop pretending she’s a lovable dork who just so happens to be ridiculously successful.
Taylor Swift always drops new albums in the fall, so we’ll know soon enough.
For now let’s all cross our fingers and hope she’ll reinstate her emo MySpace persona. Hey, a gal can dream.
