Taylor Swift released her first Midnights music video today for lead single “Anti-Hero,” and of course, it was filled with Easter eggs. As Swift told The Washington Post this week, she’ll keep the tradition going for her fans. “When I was 15 and putting together my first album, […] I decided to encode the lyrics with hidden messages using capital letters,” she said in a statement to the paper. “That’s how it started, and my fans and I have since descended into color coding, numerology, word searches, elaborate hints, and Easter eggs. It’s really about turning new music into an event for my fans and trying to entertain them in playful, mischievous, clever ways. As long as they still find it fun and exciting, I’ll keep doing it.”
The Easter eggs in “Anti-Hero” ranged from deeply personal (Swift addressing her past eating disorder by showing herself on a “Fat” scale) to peak internet culture (Swift recreating the evil Kermit meme). Swifties turned into detectives, poring over the video to identify key moments and their hidden meanings. Here, all the Easter eggs identified so far.
You can watch the music video below and scout them yourself:
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Taylor Swift – Anti-Hero (Official Music Video)
Taylor Swift’s ghosts
YouTube
YouTube
The ghosts at the beginning of the video could be references to specific people, or even Swift’s past musical eras or past selves. The cat ears on one ghost are very “22” in particular while the cowboy hat on another could be a nod to her country music roots.
Drunk Taylor
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Swift and her “evil” self drink and take shots at one point of the video, seemingly referencing “Drunk Taylor,” which trended on social media in August 2019 when videos surfaced of her dancing drunk at a party. Swift spoke about that viral moment on the Tonight Show in October 2019. “So I was at a party like a couple months ago and I had two and half mojitos, and then the next day, #DrunkTaylor was like #1 trending on Twitter, because, you know, I go from like zero to legitimately thinking I’m a wizard within like two drinks,” she said. “Like, really thinking that. Thinking about the fact that that went as far as it did, and then we’ve got this happening [the post-lasik surgery video clip]? That you’ve done this now? I can’t even be mad. I’m just impressed that you infiltrated my family. I don’t even know how you did that. Nobody has my mom’s number.”
Swift breaking her koi fish, Speak Now era guitar
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Fans were quick to notice that Swift’s koi fish guitar from her Speak Now era made a cameo (Swift plays it while her evil twin breaks it in the video). Swift has not yet released the re-recording of Speak Now. If fans want to take a hopeful read into it, maybe this could be a sign that Taylor’s Version of the album is coming soon.
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Swift’s “Everyone will betray you” lesson
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Besides feeding into Midnights’ album theme of “self-loathing,” Swift could be alluding to Big Machine Records head Scott Borchetta, who signed Swift to the label when she was just a teen, then sold the masters of her first six albums to Scooter Braun. She discussed feeling betrayed by the move in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I thought I knew what betrayal felt like, but this stuff that happened with him was a redefinition of betrayal for me, just because it felt like it was family,” Swift said. “To go from feeling like you’re being looked at as a daughter to this grotesque feeling of ‘Oh, I was actually his prized calf that he was fattening up to sell to the slaughterhouse that would pay the most.’”
Swift’s glitter ink oozes
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Dark glitter ink is seen pouring out through the video, like when Swift is shot with an arrow in the scene pictured above. The glitter ink could be a reference to how she writes songs. Swift described her three types of songwriting, including Glitter Gel Pen songwriting, in her Songwriter-Artist of the Decade acceptance speech at the Nashville Songwriter Awards. “The third category is called ‘Glitter Gel Pen’ and it lives up to its name in every way,” she explained then. “Frivolous, carefree, bouncy, syncopated perfectly to the beat. Glitter Gel Pen lyrics don’t care if you don’t take them seriously because they don’t take themselves seriously. Glitter Gel Pen lyrics are the drunk girl at the party who tells you that you look like an angel in the bathroom. It’s what we need every once in a while in these fraught times in which we live.”
Swift’s Vote for Me for Everything button
YouTube
Swift’s Vote for Me for Everything button could be a reference to skeptics who are critical of her success and just see her as award-hungry. (Swift holds the record for most Video of the Year wins at the VMAs, has 11 Grammys, and much more.) It could also allude to the movie Election and its lead character, Tracy Flick (played by Reese Witherspoon). Her steadfast determination to win her school’s election might represent the perception that Swift is being “calculated” to dominate the music industry. Flick literally made buttons in the film.
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Election (2/9) Movie CLIP – Tracy Flick Isn’t Upset (1999) HD
Swift spoke about being portrayed as calculated in her Woman of the Decade award speech in 2019.
I decided I would be what they said I couldn’t be. I didn’t know then that soon enough people would decide on something else I wasn’t quite doing right, and then the circle would keep going on and on and rolling along and I would keep accommodating, over-correcting, in an effort to appease my critics.
They’re saying I’m dating too much in my 20s? Okay, I’ll stop, I’ll just be single. For years. Now they’re saying my album Red is filled with too many breakup songs? Okay, okay, I’ll make one about moving to New York and deciding that really my life is more fun with just my friends. Oh, they’re saying my music is changing too much for me to stay in country music? All right. Okay, here’s an entire genre shift and a pop album called 1989.
Now it’s that I’m showing you too many pictures of me with my friends, okay, I can stop doing that too. Now I’m actually a calculated manipulator rather than a smart businesswoman? Okay, I’ll disappear from public view for years. Now I’m being cast a villain to you? Okay, here’s an album called Reputation and there are lots of snakes everywhere.
In the last 10 years I have watched as women in this industry are criticized and measured up to each other and picked at for their bodies, their romantic lives, their fashion, or have you ever heard someone say about a male artist, I really like his songs but I don’t know what it is, there’s just something about him I don’t like? No! That criticism is reserved for us!
But you know, I’ve learned that the difference between those who can continue to create in that climate usually comes down to this. Who lets that scrutiny break them and who just keeps making art.
A giant Swift channeling Alice in Wonderland and drinking a little bottle
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Swift referenced Alice in Wonderland‘s “drink me” bottle with her giant self trying to drink a little bottle of wine.
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Swift’s “Fat” scale
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Swift references her own past eating disorder and harmful self talk during a scene where she weighs herself with her “evil” twin alongside her. Swift spoke in the Miss Americana documentary about how the public’s commentary about her body led her to once restrict her eating. “[Although] it’s only happened a few times, and I’m not in any way proud of it,” there have been times in the past when Swift has seen “a picture of me where I feel like I looked like my tummy was too big, or…someone said that I looked pregnant…and that’ll just trigger me to just starve a little bit—just stop eating,” Swift said.
Swift “doesn’t care so much now,” Variety reported in January 2020, if someone comments on a weight gain. She has reconciled “the fact that I’m a size 6 instead of a size double-zero.” During her double-zero days, she said she’d have a defense if anyone expressed concern that she was too skinny. She’d say, “‘what are you talking about? Of course I eat. ….I exercise a lot.’ And I did exercise a lot. But I wasn’t eating.”
The evil Kermit meme recreation
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Swift has her “evil” self peer over her, just like the evil Kermit the Frog meme.
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Swift’s will and the photo of her older self with cats
YouTube
YouTube
Swift references her three cats in her fake will and her favorite number 13 (by leaving 13 cents to her kids). The older version of Swift by her coffin is also surrounded by cats. Swift has long been public about her adoration for the pet, declaring herself a “cat lady” in November 2011.
Swift calling out fans looking for Easter eggs in her will scene
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Swift had her “sons” and “daughter-in-law” address Swift’s love of hiding Easter eggs head-on.
This post will be added as more Easter eggs are identified.
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.
