Earlier today, pop star Taylor Swift released a brand-new single titled "Look What You Made Me Do." Legions of pro- and anti-Swift factions on social media had already been gnawing over the cover for the singer's upcoming new album, Reputation, for 24 hours, so anticipation was running high. Once Swift's tense, darkly electronic new tune hit Spotify late last night, everyone and their mother rushed to share an opinion on it… including whoever runs the Twitter account for far-right news organ Breitbart News.For the past five hours, Breitbart News has been tweeting lyrics from "Look What You Made Me Do" alongside its own articles—and nothing else. The site has offered no clues or context about the purpose of its actions, besides a sort of vague, trolly correlation between which article is paired with which couplet—for example, in their tweet about DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, who one surmises is quite familiar with red lines.
The burning question is, of course, why? Multiple writers and fans have called for Swift to lay out her political allegiances and especially to denounce her admirers on the extreme right, and to quote Sam Wolfson earlier on Noisey, "at a time when trust in the media has never been lower, and the US president routinely tries to blame his failings on the press, this would be an odd moment in which to lash out against journalists trying to ask questions of her."Or maybe, is Breitbart trying to force the notoriously apolitical pop icon's hand? Does this have something to do with Swift's unsettling status as a neo-Nazi dream girl? Is Steve Bannon a closet Swifty? Are we all just scrolling through a Hard Times article that never ends?I have no answers for you, dear reader, for it is 2017, and not even extraordinarily wealthy white ladies are safe from the vortex of chaos that has subsumed us all.
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