Taylor Swift dropped a sexy new music video for her song “…Ready for It?,” the second single off of her forthcoming album, Reputation.
The Joseph Kahn-directed video features several sci-fi elements as well as Swift as a naked cyborg. Shortly after the video’s release just after midnight on Friday, October 27, fans were quick to note the possible hidden messages throughout the three minute and 30-second video.
While Swift is famous for including symbolic images in her videos, fans are speculating that the “…Ready for It?” song and video accompaniment are largely about the singer’s boyfriend of several months, Joe Alwyn. In the song, Swift sings about someone “younger than my exes but he act like such a man.” Eagle-eyed Swifties noted on social media that in the video, Swift stands in front of the numbers 89 and 91, her and Alwyn’s birth years, respectively.
Taylor and Joe’s birth years, 1989 and 1991 written on the wall. #ReadyForItMusicVideo pic.twitter.com/2yij2uZglh
— Taylor Swift Updates (@TSwiftPR) October 27, 2017
In another quick shot, Swift punches the numbers 2 and 1 into a keypad, which some fans took as a nod to Alwyn’s February 21 birthday. In a slightly less subtle shout-out to her beau, viewers noted that the name Joseph is spray-painted on a wall accompanied by a halo, which may have been a nod to Alwyn or to Kahn.
Ok and that clearly says “Joseph” with a halo on it. #ReadyForItMusicVideo pic.twitter.com/KvxgorP17K
— Joy🖤✨ (@smilesandswifts) October 27, 2017
However, not all references in the video are quite as romantic. Twenty-two seconds into the video, there is a shot of Chinese calligraphy in an alleyway. “OMG. The characters 蛇年 is Chinese for ‘Year of the Snake,’” one fan explained on Twitter. “Which is the zodiac year @taylorswift13 was born in.” During Swift’s infamous feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in 2016, several Instagram users flooded the “Shake It Off” singer’s comments section with snake emojis after Kardashian leaked a phone call between Swift and West. Swift has since used the image to her benefit by selling snake merchandise as part of her Reputation merchandise and including a CGI snake in her recent “Look What You Made Me Do” video.
Reputation will be released on November 10.
