In the cult of Taylor Swift fandom, there are few greater sins than spoiling the meticulously choreographed release of new music. So when her latest album The Tortured Poets Department began leaking online three days ahead of its official drop, a civil war erupted among the pop superstar’s obsessive fanbase.
On one side were the self-professed “true fans” – activists willing to fight any hint of premature listening with the same ferocity as anonymous government censors. Across Twitter and other platforms, these militant Swifties made it their mission to shame those who couldn’t resist the temptation of leaked links proliferating across the internet.
“Raise your hand if you’re an ACTUAL Taylor Swift fan and aren’t listening,” implored one particularly fired up user, instantly racking up thousands of approving replies and retweets. “People need to understand that this isn’t just about being a fan. It’s about respecting others and their hard work!”
Others took a more proactive tact, sharing reams of fake URLs and zip files in an attempt to drown out the real leaks in a sea of misinformation. One fan even claimed to have reported links to Swift’s record label in order to have them scrubbed from online forums. For these diehards, nothing could be allowed to sully the carefully vetted vision their queen had prepared for the world.
On the other side were the unabashed early listeners – fans who saw no issue with gleefully devouring The Tortured Poets Department a few sunrises sooner than the publicly sanctioned release date. Despite indignant scolding about how they “weren’t real fans” from the purity police, these insurgents made no apologies as they analyized each new track across social media.
The schism highlighted both the Charlie Foxxtrot levels of devotion Swift inspires in her sprawling, multi-generational fanbase as well as the polarizing effects of her surprise release strategy. By choosing to drop unannounced albums like easter egg-filled event films, the 33-year-old singer has intentionally cultivated an atmosphere of feverish speculation and online scavenger hunts.
In that sense, the leak was in many ways an inevitable byproduct of Swift’s own wildly successful ethos. After building a reputation for relentless self-promotion and endless, infinitesimally dissected content cycles for albums like Reputation, Folklore, and Midnights, some fans simply couldn’t resist peeling back the curtain a tad early on her latest so-called “chaotic era.”
Of course, it hardly mattered in the end from a commercial standpoint. When Midnights sprang an equally infamous leak last year, the premature online availability did little to dampen its wildly lucrative rollout. The album sold over 1.5 million copies in its first week and helped Swift smash more records on her relentless touring juggernaut.
Even before its official arrival, The Tortured Poets Department had already made history as well, setting a new Spotify record for most pre-saved album of all time. As soon as its existence leaked earlier this month, Swifties around the world marked their calendars for the imminent merch splurge – with a new line of Tortured Poet-branded hoodies, lithographs, and other tchotchkes dropping alongside the music itself.
On release day Friday, social media was innundated with reaction videos from deliriously planned listening parties. Each lyrical turn of phrase and musical detour was dissected in real-time across Reddit forums, Twitter threads, and overheated Instagram Story breakdowns. A mere 10-second snippet of a new music video sent fans into a content rapture deciphering its deeper meanings.
Initial reviews were largely positive if not hyperbolic, with Variety dubbing it “the Taylor Swift-est record ever” while Rolling Stone labeled the 16-track collection “wildly ambitious and gloriously chaotic.” But the NME couldn’t resist snark, bemoaning some “cringe-inducing lines” and questioning if it lived up to Swift’s audacious sonic shifts of the past.
As much of the fandom seemed to embrace The Tortured Poets’ return to the synth-pop grandiosity of Midnights, another subset bemoaned what appeared to be an over-saturation of thinly veiled lyrics about Swift’s new British boyfriend Matt Healy – with one much-mocked line likening the 1975 frontman to a “tattooed golden retriever.”
In the end, the ever-escalating civil war between leakers and loyalists may just be Swifties engaging in their favorite ritual of all: obsessing over every possible angle of their prophet’s every move. And as Friday’s tsunami of breathless reactions made clear, even the earliest of leaks was powerless to dampen the feverish communal experience that now accompanies each fresh Taylor Swift release.