Taylor Swift's fans are tittering with excitement over all the hidden messages the singer packed into the new Blake Lively-directed video for her single "I Bet You Think About Me."
The previously unreleased song, which Swifties believe is about the singer's 2010 breakup with actor Jake Gyllenhaal, is featured on "Red (Taylor’s Version)," the re-recording of Swift's 2012 album, "Red." In 2019, after a dispute with her former record label, Big Machine, in which she lost control of the masters of her music, Swift vowed to rerecord her first six albums.
Swift, 31, released the video for "I Bet You Think About Me" on Monday, just two days after she performed another song from the rerecorded album, the epic 10-minute "All Too Well" — also believed to be about her brief romance with Gyllenhaal — on "Saturday Night Live."
Just as soon at the video for "I Bet You Think About Me" dropped, Swifties began studying it for Easter eggs. After all, Swift is big on packing her song lyrics and music videos with clues about her life.
Here are just a few of the Easter eggs fans discovered.
1) Swift wears only red in the video.
Fans noted right away that Swift is dressed in red in nearly every scene in the video, which takes place at the wedding of an ex, played by actor Miles Teller. Other people in the video wear white. The red is, of course, a nod to the album's title, and also to Swift's lyrics from the title track, where she sings of post-breakup "flashbacks and echos." "I still see it all in my head / in burning red," she sings.
2) The red scarf is back.
Swifties instantly recognized the red scarf in the video. A similar scarf appears in the epic 15-minute video for "All Too Well," released Friday. And here it is again. In this latest video, Swift is seen giving the scarf to her ex's new bride as a wedding gift. Swift also mentions a scarf in the lyrics for "All Too Well." "I left my scarf there at your sister’s house / And you’ve still got it in your drawer even now," she sings.
3) What's with all the birds?
Birds appear a lot in this video. Some fans believe the bird motif in the cake's icing look just like the birds on the top of the shirt Swift wore on the cover of her "1989" album. Could "1989" be the next album Swift rerecords?
Meanwhile, others noticed birds appear on the settings on the tables at the wedding, and in a stained glass window behind Teller. The birds, a few fans noted, resemble a real-life bird called a swift. Hmmm.
4) That ruby heart ring looked familiar.
Swift teased the video with a short clip showing a hand wearing a red heart ring encrusted with diamonds. Fans were quick to note that the ring looked a lot like a ring that director Lively wore in an Instagram pic she posted last week. Swift, of course, is besties in real life with Lively and her hubby, Ryan Reynolds. In fact, she revealed the name of the couple’s youngest daughter in a track from "Folklore" titled "Betty."
5) Hey, it's the circus ringmaster top hat!
Swift is seen goofing around at the children's table at the wedding, where she pulls a stuffed rabbit from a hat that looks like the circus ringmaster top hat she wore in November 2012 when she performed "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" at the MTV EMAs, the European VMAs. Swift later wore the hat again on her 2013 concert tour dates.
6) The equal sign on the wedding cake looks like the cover of Ed Sheeran's new album.
In one of the video's most blatant "hidden" messages, Swift smears the wedding cake with an equal sign design that resembles the photo on the cover of Ed Sheeran's new album "=." Naturally, fans are wondering if the two pop superstars, who have recorded together in the past, have another collaboration up their sleeves.