In celebration of the end of the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift shared multiple behind-the-scenes moments from her various recent music videos.
The clips had been played on screens in stadiums ahead of each show but on her 35th birthday, the You Belong With Me icon released them on her YouTube.
Rather than fans enjoying the birthday present, one moment from the Bejeweled bts video with Haim, Jack Antonoff, and others went viral due to Taylor’s lock screen.
In one incredibly brief frame, The Man hitmaker moves her phone while talking to make-up artist Pat McGrath and her lock screen is visible.
Her phone is now blurred, however, fans claim it originally showed a picture of herself and ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn as they were still together when this was filmed.
This innocuous, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment was picked up by accounts claiming to be fans and shared widely online, with some even tagging Taylor herself.
The most viral was a now-deleted post from X user @buttiimar who shared a screenshot of the moment and captioned it with a mashup of Taylor’s own lyrics.
Tagging Taylor, they wrote: ‘My beloved ghost and me sitting in a tree but we’d still worship this love.’
The mashed-up lyrics are from How Did It End from TTPD and False God from Lover, with the former written about how people demand a public dissection when you split.
This post got a huge amount of traction and over 6.1million views on X alone, with ‘invasive freaks’ lamenting the breakup and criticising Taylor and her relationship with Travis Kelce.
She split from the Kinds of Kindness actor almost two years ago after seven years together and has rarely spoken of the split since, outside of her lyrics.
Since then, the lock screen has been blurred in the behind-the-scenes video with angry fans speculating this was in direct response to this commentary.
‘The one swiftie who posted it and TAGGED her needs to take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror,’ wrote Mini on X. ‘Crazy behaviour, you guys take the parasocial relationship way too far.’
‘“Fans” WRONG! they’re called invasive lifeless FREAKS!’ slammed Jen as Hannah added: ‘yall are horrible.’
Isobel pointed out: ‘Taylor gifted us with 9 bts videos on her BIRTHDAY, more than 30 minutes of content and the only thing y’all thought was: omg her ex!’
Kaysie said: ‘Her last album made it so clear how fed up she is with her so-called fans and it’s like no one actually listened to a word she said.’
Julianna shared: ‘I miss when we were just a very large group of people she actually enjoyed hanging out with online and trade recipes on tumblr. You guys just don’t treat her like a human being and don’t deserve the intimacy she used to share.’
Taylor has noticeably pulled back from fans after years of being incredibly involved as her star power grew to dizzying heights and factions began to form.
Swifties are fiercely loyal to the Cardigan singer but more and more she has pushed back against those crossing boundaries, particularly regarding her relationships.
But Daddy I Love Him directly shuns ‘saboteurs’ trying to control her love life, a theme that emerged throughout TTPD.
In one of the song’s verses, she scathingly sings: ‘I’ll tell you something right now / I’d rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this b**ching and moaning / I’ll tell you something about my good name, it’s mine alone to disgrace / I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empaths’ clothing.’
This year alone, fans have demanded a response to Vienna, made a petition asking her to break up with Matty Healy — who she never officially dated — and even held up pictures of her dead grandmother during Marjorie.
Parasocial relationships appear to have tipped over to a new and concerning level and if Taylor won’t say it, we will; Swifties need to calm down.
Metro has reached out to Taylor’s team for comment.
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