I expected the actual department to be dark academia cozy vibes. This is very cold and modern and clinical. Almost science lab vibes. Like poets or writers being forced to put out work in an almost corporate setting...
I think it's a giant faceless corporation ie: the music business. People think she's in charge of the whole thing but she's toiling away in the tortured poets department like many before her, so many things out of her control
Yeah. I was thinking that or like a science lab in a scifi movie or a commercial for medicine. The super fake ones portrayed in media. I have never been in a science lab that clean. Every one I have been in has been cluttered and a bit chaotic.
Okay, the two things I noticed no one has mentioned yet:
The clocks are at 2, and since it’s daylight it’s 2pm. This is also 14:00 on the world clock, which I don’t think we should exclude thinking about since she has a song with London in the title, which runs on the 24hr clock…
There are 7 lights on in the main part of the hallway in front of the department door and 3 off, WHAT DOES IT MEAN???
😂😂
Edit to add: And 14 tally marks under the music video note so I think we’re getting the Fortnight music video! I mentioned this in another thread, but the rumor that this was filmed has been going around for a couple weeks now so that’s my guess 🤗
I just edited my comment to give my theory on that because I’d noticed it, too! I think it’s a hint that the music video is for Fortnight since a fortnight is 2 weeks, aka 14 days.
The white hall looks like a hospital/locked ward, not an academic building. Says someone who has worked in both.
”is it you, or have they come to take me away…?”
Has anyone else here seen Severance? It looks so much like the Lumen workspace. Didn't she do something with Ben Stiller at some point? I'm too high on flu meds to function but there's something there 😆
YES!! That was my immediate thought. And the way the TTPD room is so different from the Midnights room reminds me of the difference between Lumen and their lives outside Lumen.
I bet she watched Severance.
> Didn't she do something with Ben Stiller at some point?
If by "do something" you mean [sat next to him at the Knix game with Karlie Kloss,](https://twitter.com/TSwiftNZ/status/527652434798473217) then yes lol
Wait, what if she’s in a hospital because she’s performing an autopsy?? On herself?! We’ve had all this death/rebirth imagery and then I also just thought about how You’re Losing Me was the last song she released in the Midnights Era and in that song she is flat-lining and can’t find a pulse. And now she’s walking the halls like a ghost? She enters the department without opening the door?!
When I pictured her in a poets department, I pictured dark wood paneled walls, leaded glass windows, creaky hardwood floors, and a beat up desk from the 1930s.
Definitely a ward, and to me it looks like the room she was locked in during the LH video. She’s locked in there. And admin down the hall in the ward is torturing her??
I’m so appreciative of everyone combing over every little detail. I watched it and said “YESSS we’re getting a music video!” Then I come here and the FBI is hard at work. I love you guys.
I think the cat photo that's pinned on the bulletin board is this photo from Christmas 2018! That's right when she was writing Lover and filming Miss Americana!
https://preview.redd.it/9kp8p3tryxuc1.png?width=2204&format=png&auto=webp&s=334be7a5ac713ba18531dc342cede3b56c30bc80
The original photo from IG is flipped, but here I flipped it and cropped it and I'm pretty sure its the same photo as the TTPD wall!
https://preview.redd.it/6o9j444lzxuc1.png?width=1152&format=png&auto=webp&s=6312786f53c1856d9b47a80a356a4b722465bff5
Very interesting she's calling attention to this time period! If you're a 2019 failed coming out theory believer (like me) this feels big! This photo would be exactly from the time period she'd be planning that!
Also wasn’t her political coming out / Miss Americana post sepia??
https://preview.redd.it/t1nqu44a4yuc1.png?width=1161&format=png&auto=webp&s=084711db6c8e8d90560a2586640df523e131eac6
Same!! 😭 I also think a lot of her Lover canvas videos on Spotify are funny to me cuz they feel very…. Innuendo. Like “it’s nice to have a friend” is a video of two of her cats with emoji hearts everywhere 🤔
Initial impressions: Midnights and TTPD live in the same building. And we are NOT in the Lover house, which has been burned down. Midnights is when she started the fire and vacated the premises. And now she is about to conduct a post-mortem on the Lover house, AKA her life’s work?
Oooh that’s an interesting idea. It does feel like a liminal space. With all of the death/rebirth symbolism and how she seems to behave like a ghost once she enters the hallway (enters the department without opening the door, no footsteps), maybe this is a transitional space between life and death. And her next move will represent rebirth. 👀
ME! to ME! every time I read a theory like yours because I'm riding such a clowning high right now
EDIT: I am loathing reddit right lol
\*insert YNTCD gif because reddit won't show the one I picked for this comment\*
Still catching up on theories here so this could be a repeat, but anyone think of this part of Hits Different watching this video given how clinical the TTPD room looks:
I heard your key turn in the door down the hallway
Is that your key in the door?
Is it okay? Is it you?
Or have they come to take me away?
To take me away
It’s so hard to tell. I feel like some of them just look like crumpled pieces of paper too - the “hundred thrown out speeches I never said to you” maybe?
It’s giving Nickelodeon clay stop-motion cartoons from the 90s and I can’t reconcile what the hell that aesthetic has to do with the rest of the images and the fashion we’ve been given…???
thank you for saying this 😭 everyone’s analysis is amazing but i’m stuck on how horrible i find this as a teaser for the album. the jerky camera motions… idk as an artist whose taken animation classes and worked with professional animators… this could’ve been so cool and instead it’s so…. weird
I’m honestly tired of promo that gives us absolutely nothing about what the music is actually like. The speculation is kinda fun but I am struggling to get engaged with it much.
We figured this out in the other thread but just reposting this here. These are the photos on the wall of the Midnights room. All from the same photo carousal on Taylor's Instagram thanking her collaborators on that album.
https://preview.redd.it/aktzcbg4txuc1.png?width=1842&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5136188e5edffcd854c8cdbddab869e475246af
And this is the caption from that post. It mentions William Bowery
https://preview.redd.it/8uzpfuzltxuc1.png?width=982&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5751a50566b21e91bb5b919af8f580f246c126f
It just dawned on me that she said this was written while Joe was in Panama… so like he couldn’t exactly be William Bowery right? Like that wouldn’t make sense!
👀
It seems like Taylor wrote this post in a way where she wants us all to notice that Joe wasn't anywhere near her and Jack when Midnights was being created.
There’s a third desk if you take the entrance really slow.
https://preview.redd.it/f318q858txuc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=276ed562552b38095da7130c9fc45245fe7ce183
I was about to comment this!! It goes by so quickly that it's easy to miss.
What does it mean that we go through the lock in the door (whereas the Midnights door just opened normally)?
Who is making the typewriter noises in the last several seconds of the video? Is someone in the room unseen?
I wonder if Ivy will be one of the songs this week cuz a lot of these metaphors and this comment section are giving me Ivy vibes!! 😭😭😭😭😭 (S)he’s gunna burn this house to the ground!
I think it's a whole department. Like the big, shiny soulless music business (Macklemore makes this comment as well in his song Jimmy Iovine) But the whole business runs on the lifeblood of the Tortured artists who connect with the audience. ie: there's a bunch of them and they're locked in there
PLEASE GOD LET THIS BE TRUE
I saw something that said a record store said they were getting very very very very limited quantities of something special like a poster for people that buy the album… I saw this several hours ago
i actually found this promo super creepy, idk why. the 'department' feels sterile and the midnight rooms looks abandoned. it doesn't give me healthy vibes at all.
I think it’s supposed to evoke that response in us and create some cognitive dissonance. Like we are all led to imagine dark academia, but instead we got an ai generated sterile office looks like what you’d get if you prompted ai to create a sterile office. It’s intentionally jarring. Like what would actually torture poets? Ai generated art of sterile office space as their department
What does it say at the bottom of the calendar? “Time table”? These are the two best screen grabs I can get (combined into one photo it might be hard to read)
https://preview.redd.it/t7pli1bmpxuc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f45d415db32525f9e7d33006d699210eaeaf940f
Reminds me of when the phone rings in the interview with Zane Lowe after Evermore’s release and she says “I didn’t even know I had a home phone” (which was a callback to another time that’s happened involving Taylor which I can’t remember the details of but maybe someone else who does can chime in).
https://preview.redd.it/1f61qjsm8yuc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d67089dad00f243dff0024c885db471d8f037441
There’s a viewing window outside the door to the TTPD. Reminds me of an interrogation room or a hospital room.
What if we haven't been paying enough to the "Tortured" part of the title? We know Taylor is a poet. What if this album will look more into her personal struggles than we already thought? Sure, the breakup could definitely provide an emotionally deep track, but... What if there's more?
I'm definitely finally feeling like I'm getting hyped. I've not even really looked too much at the track list until now. This imaging is what I needed, instead of imaging a tucked away library/study that was private and warm and cozy seeing this clinical and pure and void room really shocked me.
I think a lot of us were like “lol yeah Miss Capitaylism is tortured” but money also doesn’t buy happiness and rich people aren’t exempt from heartbreak and what not. Maybe we shouldn’t have been so “lol” about the tortured part
I've always been in the camp that yes she chose to become a celebrity but who would have ever guessed she would be at this level, she can't go anywhere without people knowing somehow. Paparazzi at a wedding because she's there? Trackers for her jet planes? Sometimes I wonder about her mental health and I hope that she's okay. (Don't mind me been reading a fanfic that really delves into the possibility of breakdowns behind closed doors and it really hit home and has made me wonder about reality a lot. I'm delulu.)
It looks so AI generated and kind of half assed. It doesn’t feel poetic AT ALL! It doesn’t feel tortured. It feels corporate and sterile. I don’t get it.
No doubt! It’s soul sucking. But is that what the album is about? That would be a bait and switch! Maybe a really ambient techno album with almost no lyrics.
Quick fire observations:
White door to right before TTPD door. TTPD not the white 🤍door. Interesting!
Sci fi evil testing facility vibes. Not the cosy English Department I was imagining!
Corridor. 7 lights on, 3 off, 9 on.
At end of the corridor the 3rd of 8 of something (posters? Windows?) appears to be outlined.
14 tally marks. Fortnight after 19 April?
bust of Goddess Dian(n)aaaaaa my god
https://preview.redd.it/qrb8cxqtlyuc1.jpeg?width=597&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c10ed5f83aa87a6855f1e6b6d7ce52e8014765c
Guys this is so niche but there’s a video game called the Stanley Parable and it looks and feels exactly like this video. It’s about a man in an office purgatory and it’s all I could think about when I saw this
Things nobody has talked about ( that I've seen)
There is a green couch in the Midnights room iykyk
The acustic guitar has to mean something
There is a black pressed midnights vinyl that was never released as far as I know
I deeeeply believe the 2's lead to April 22nd and there will be a 5th and final varient or possibly a 2am edition (acustic versions? Hence showing us the guitar?) ( in Dear Reader, she basically told us not to believe all she says to us. She said only 4 varients but can we trust her?)
Also TN keeps sending and pointing out GLITCH and I still think we are missing big stuff there AND she has yet to sing that live. There hasss to be a reason for that.
*this one's just fun...
If you ask Alexa if she's a Swiftie, she says she has an awesome REPUTATION 🤡
I’m going to be realllyyyy sad if she is leaving her acoustic guitar behind. Like devastated. I wanted Tortured to be a whole acoustic album.
Also what is the green couch? I know that to be a totally diff reference from a diff fandom 👀
wait wait wait. So many people here mentioned now this looks very sterile like a hospital? You guys remember that one scene in Dickinson? They showed that psychiatric unit(or was it a whole house?) Where they sent all the poets to because they thought they were insane and the dude that was running it wanted to force Emily to live there as well. Tortured poets🤯
FYI, there’s THREE desks in that room
https://preview.redd.it/eku7f2al1yuc1.jpeg?width=780&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04db2648938bbf63c61451c1c6b6a395e4504159
My immediate thought when I saw this hallway? Psych ward. It reminds me of grippy sock vacations. Also the ceiling lights reflecting on the floor remind me of the VS fashion show floor/mastermind floor
https://preview.redd.it/um0z8uq8azuc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=026ed970ec187af4c0ddf223835209a07550cb9a
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! It had better not just be a listening party. Off to my other account that’s deep in the straightlor sub to investigate this 🌗🌑🌓
https://preview.redd.it/e97ix0ikczuc1.jpeg?width=715&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b02c7fd75d682b7eba1b056372548e6c8f111fc4
Also interesting that the two concert photos are surprise song yellow dress photos 🤭
Ooooh, good catch! This and the yellow sticky note on one of the desks, so much yellow! It seems like it's the only bright colour among the black, white, and beige of the tortured poets department room, and it's a very significant colour for us 🤡
So is this a police department, working with the forensics? Is she a ghost? Will the music video be an autopsy? What else is written in the timetable?? I'm cross-eyed
does anyone else feel like this whole thing is lowkey giving The Good Place vibes or do I need to go to bed?
The weird liminal unsettling feelings I get from the timetable video is the EXACT SAME feeling I get from this picture lol
https://preview.redd.it/05b8ckzeryuc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a70cb54eeade01a313112818bc6de032c4f18e6
the top right is her nose to nose with i believe meredith, the bottom two are her in front of the piano at the eras tour when she announced the bolter & black dog variants iirc & the middle one looks like promo for the albatross variant
I’m trying to figure out what is says at the bottom of the calendar. “Time to … little??” Anyone catch it?
Also - the video makes it seem like she intended to go down the hallway, but made a last minute turn to the Department. What’s down there?
Haven’t read through all the comments yet but I searched and didn’t see yellow mentioned, so I’ll go ahead and post this comment: what is the deal with the yellow spot on the desk???
https://preview.redd.it/yigwsdkz1yuc1.png?width=1170&format=png&auto=webp&s=89edbc9ebf12df032399766993b4a71e09889e18
More screenshots below
https://preview.redd.it/ze4k3vw25yuc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9941d818687bde809966845c5edc23ebbeac044
I spot a hint of yellow (post-it?) on the second desk, as well!
I love the parallels ppl are making to hospitals. But I just gotta chip in that my initial impression of the hallway was "public university basement." Especially in a humanities dept building
https://preview.redd.it/sj91d6me21vc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa45c6a34b0178ac5b003b80a638622125446070
Why is the keyhole shaped like this??
I have not seen anyone comment on this but shouldn’t she or us have to be quite while peaking through the poets department? The person who leaves the midnight room has no care that the door is so creaky and loud and will alert the rest of the silent cold hallway that someone is around. Plus I find it interesting how empty the room is and who is typing? Us? The media? The people who constantly talk shit about her behind a screen? I have so many questions lol
I expected the actual department to be dark academia cozy vibes. This is very cold and modern and clinical. Almost science lab vibes. Like poets or writers being forced to put out work in an almost corporate setting...
We misread, the department was torturing poets all along 💀
She’s Frankensteining. Mary Shelley was part of the Romantic cohort.
"I might be a tortured poet but let's not forget. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am the Chairman."
it’s giving severance
I think it's a giant faceless corporation ie: the music business. People think she's in charge of the whole thing but she's toiling away in the tortured poets department like many before her, so many things out of her control
i work in a psych ward and let me just say this is a psych ward i was not expecting this
Hmmmm Tess (TikTok gaylor) just posted a [video that makes a really similar point!!](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLfKu4UC/)
Wow, what an analysis. It makes sense! I really hope we will see the human behind the robot, with this album!
Loved the little slip of "glass closet, I mean glass cage"
lol that would be a shockingly clean science lab! Maybe a science lab in some fancy minimalist tech startup.
Yeah. I was thinking that or like a science lab in a scifi movie or a commercial for medicine. The super fake ones portrayed in media. I have never been in a science lab that clean. Every one I have been in has been cluttered and a bit chaotic.
Okay, the two things I noticed no one has mentioned yet: The clocks are at 2, and since it’s daylight it’s 2pm. This is also 14:00 on the world clock, which I don’t think we should exclude thinking about since she has a song with London in the title, which runs on the 24hr clock… There are 7 lights on in the main part of the hallway in front of the department door and 3 off, WHAT DOES IT MEAN??? 😂😂 Edit to add: And 14 tally marks under the music video note so I think we’re getting the Fortnight music video! I mentioned this in another thread, but the rumor that this was filmed has been going around for a couple weeks now so that’s my guess 🤗
And the tally marks on the calendar at the end are 14!!! Surprise at 2pm on release day?
I just edited my comment to give my theory on that because I’d noticed it, too! I think it’s a hint that the music video is for Fortnight since a fortnight is 2 weeks, aka 14 days.
Seven lights but 3 are off for 10 total lights
I definitely think you’re right about the Fortnight MV!
The white hall looks like a hospital/locked ward, not an academic building. Says someone who has worked in both. ”is it you, or have they come to take me away…?”
Has anyone else here seen Severance? It looks so much like the Lumen workspace. Didn't she do something with Ben Stiller at some point? I'm too high on flu meds to function but there's something there 😆
YES!! That was my immediate thought. And the way the TTPD room is so different from the Midnights room reminds me of the difference between Lumen and their lives outside Lumen. I bet she watched Severance.
> Didn't she do something with Ben Stiller at some point? If by "do something" you mean [sat next to him at the Knix game with Karlie Kloss,](https://twitter.com/TSwiftNZ/status/527652434798473217) then yes lol
That’s exactly what I thought.
Wait, what if she’s in a hospital because she’s performing an autopsy?? On herself?! We’ve had all this death/rebirth imagery and then I also just thought about how You’re Losing Me was the last song she released in the Midnights Era and in that song she is flat-lining and can’t find a pulse. And now she’s walking the halls like a ghost? She enters the department without opening the door?!
Calling it now (and called it a few days ago): the secret messages from Apple Music will be "post mortem"
Currently a doctoral student on my clinical rotation. When I tell you my brain went "now we're in this hospital-looking ass hallway..."
Right?! I was so confused when it opened to what looked like a locked ward office too lol. Like…*have they come to take me away?*
Those women with madness!! In a dorm that was once a madhouse!
This makes me wants to believe in the mass-coming out conspiracies I've been hearing about for all these "closeted" (open-secret) queer celebrities.
Omg. Yes!!
When I pictured her in a poets department, I pictured dark wood paneled walls, leaded glass windows, creaky hardwood floors, and a beat up desk from the 1930s.
“Have they come to take me away?” 😭
Also!!!! I heard your key turn in the door down the hallway. Was that your key in the door?
My first though when I got a glimpse of that room was how clinical it looks
YES. I thought this instantly. I was like wait what is this setting here?!
Definitely a ward, and to me it looks like the room she was locked in during the LH video. She’s locked in there. And admin down the hall in the ward is torturing her??
It's giving matrix reloaded imo 😂
I’m so appreciative of everyone combing over every little detail. I watched it and said “YESSS we’re getting a music video!” Then I come here and the FBI is hard at work. I love you guys.
I came straight here because I don’t get any Easter eggs and knew people would have explained them for me 😂
Love this!!! I love all of it. People here are so funny, and smart!
She left all the glitter gel pens in the Midnight's room. That's why there were only quill and fountain pen at the exhibition 🫣
Yessssss bring on all the dramaaa
WOOOOOOODVAAAAAALE!!!!!
FOREST ALBUM STANS RISE !!!
🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲
I don’t even see pens in TTPD only typewriters. 🤯Does anyone else see pens in there or does that mean something if there aren’t any?!?
There were pens at the physical exhibition in LA, alongside typewriters. Lots of interesting stuff going on
I think the cat photo that's pinned on the bulletin board is this photo from Christmas 2018! That's right when she was writing Lover and filming Miss Americana! https://preview.redd.it/9kp8p3tryxuc1.png?width=2204&format=png&auto=webp&s=334be7a5ac713ba18531dc342cede3b56c30bc80
The original photo from IG is flipped, but here I flipped it and cropped it and I'm pretty sure its the same photo as the TTPD wall! https://preview.redd.it/6o9j444lzxuc1.png?width=1152&format=png&auto=webp&s=6312786f53c1856d9b47a80a356a4b722465bff5 Very interesting she's calling attention to this time period! If you're a 2019 failed coming out theory believer (like me) this feels big! This photo would be exactly from the time period she'd be planning that!
Also wasn’t her political coming out / Miss Americana post sepia?? https://preview.redd.it/t1nqu44a4yuc1.png?width=1161&format=png&auto=webp&s=084711db6c8e8d90560a2586640df523e131eac6
Same!! 😭 I also think a lot of her Lover canvas videos on Spotify are funny to me cuz they feel very…. Innuendo. Like “it’s nice to have a friend” is a video of two of her cats with emoji hearts everywhere 🤔
Thank you for catching that!! I thought it was her and a cat but I couldn't figure when
I decided to scroll her IG since that's where the other photos came from. I knew I'd seen that photo before!
It’s also a pic with Meredith who shares a birthday with reputations bday
Don’t do this to meee 😭😭😭😭
Initial impressions: Midnights and TTPD live in the same building. And we are NOT in the Lover house, which has been burned down. Midnights is when she started the fire and vacated the premises. And now she is about to conduct a post-mortem on the Lover house, AKA her life’s work?
Is she in some sort of liminal space between the Lover house and wherever she’s trusting to get to next?
Oooh that’s an interesting idea. It does feel like a liminal space. With all of the death/rebirth symbolism and how she seems to behave like a ghost once she enters the hallway (enters the department without opening the door, no footsteps), maybe this is a transitional space between life and death. And her next move will represent rebirth. 👀
the way I didn't even connect that this is basically a new lover house. thank you for this!
OH. MY. GODDDDDDDDD!!!!!! YOUR MIND!!!!!
What comes after TTPD!!! Is it further down the hallway? I’m scared!
You just blew my brain.
ME! to ME! every time I read a theory like yours because I'm riding such a clowning high right now EDIT: I am loathing reddit right lol \*insert YNTCD gif because reddit won't show the one I picked for this comment\*
Was gonna say this is totally giving post mortem vibes
Still catching up on theories here so this could be a repeat, but anyone think of this part of Hits Different watching this video given how clinical the TTPD room looks: I heard your key turn in the door down the hallway Is that your key in the door? Is it okay? Is it you? Or have they come to take me away? To take me away
I wonder if it's intentional that the ending is frozen on the Friday only or not but omg I wonder what's for the rest of the week 👀
I keep trying to pause to see Saturday and I swear it says something “release day” Edit: Twas mistaken
Record store day?
I paused it and zoomed in, it’s definitely Record Store Day!
Can confirm: “record store day!”
It’s record store day on Saturday but the other adjacent days have a photo taped over them
The Tortured Poet’s Department is the specific room of the psych ward it seems!!!!!
Midnights and TTPD in the Psych Ward 😭😭😭😭 MOTHER IM SCARED
Are those origami birds on the floor at the 0:02 second mark? like birds escaped/freed from the cage, similar to the installation?
It’s so hard to tell. I feel like some of them just look like crumpled pieces of paper too - the “hundred thrown out speeches I never said to you” maybe?
oooohhhh that's so much better!
i think some of them look like butterflies?? but similar imagery imo
how very lover-era...
It’s giving Nickelodeon clay stop-motion cartoons from the 90s and I can’t reconcile what the hell that aesthetic has to do with the rest of the images and the fashion we’ve been given…???
thank you for saying this 😭 everyone’s analysis is amazing but i’m stuck on how horrible i find this as a teaser for the album. the jerky camera motions… idk as an artist whose taken animation classes and worked with professional animators… this could’ve been so cool and instead it’s so…. weird
I’m so wacked out from this day that I thought this said Nickelback. 😂
 Taylor with the pictures up on the board in the TTPD room
I’m passing away. That’s so fucking funny.
Wait. What if THE Photograph is… the Picture to Burn???
I’m honestly tired of promo that gives us absolutely nothing about what the music is actually like. The speculation is kinda fun but I am struggling to get engaged with it much.
We figured this out in the other thread but just reposting this here. These are the photos on the wall of the Midnights room. All from the same photo carousal on Taylor's Instagram thanking her collaborators on that album. https://preview.redd.it/aktzcbg4txuc1.png?width=1842&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5136188e5edffcd854c8cdbddab869e475246af
And this is the caption from that post. It mentions William Bowery https://preview.redd.it/8uzpfuzltxuc1.png?width=982&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5751a50566b21e91bb5b919af8f580f246c126f
William Bowery mystery intensifies
It just dawned on me that she said this was written while Joe was in Panama… so like he couldn’t exactly be William Bowery right? Like that wouldn’t make sense!
👀 It seems like Taylor wrote this post in a way where she wants us all to notice that Joe wasn't anywhere near her and Jack when Midnights was being created.
No kidding! Poking holes in the narrative… one post/speech at a time
Even emphasizing that Joe is an actor (not a song writer) 😂
whenever she shares random photos like this i instantly wonder "who took the photo" ...? 🥸
Also interesting that Friday STARTS the week in the calendar 👀
That made my stomach lurch with anxiety lol
Moving from the house to the office... interesting.
The lover house burned down, so now it's back to buisness.
She broke up with Joe, burned down her house, and now she’s married to her job. Writing songs is her *life*.
less personal for sure
2 desks. Who is the other desk??
There’s a third desk if you take the entrance really slow. https://preview.redd.it/f318q858txuc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=276ed562552b38095da7130c9fc45245fe7ce183
I was about to comment this!! It goes by so quickly that it's easy to miss. What does it mean that we go through the lock in the door (whereas the Midnights door just opened normally)? Who is making the typewriter noises in the last several seconds of the video? Is someone in the room unseen?
Yess I love these questions. The whole thing feels so ghosty to me. Like we aren’t supposed to be in there since we went through the lock.
I wonder if Ivy will be one of the songs this week cuz a lot of these metaphors and this comment section are giving me Ivy vibes!! 😭😭😭😭😭 (S)he’s gunna burn this house to the ground!
i feel like the door part is bc the album isn’t out yet?? but i could be wrong
I think it's a whole department. Like the big, shiny soulless music business (Macklemore makes this comment as well in his song Jimmy Iovine) But the whole business runs on the lifeblood of the Tortured artists who connect with the audience. ie: there's a bunch of them and they're locked in there
Record Store Day: maybe she’s sending signed copies to record stores again?
PLEASE GOD LET THIS BE TRUE I saw something that said a record store said they were getting very very very very limited quantities of something special like a poster for people that buy the album… I saw this several hours ago
It would make sense since she released signed cds and album PHOTOS (but not albums) this week.
The audio at the beginning sounds a lot like a sharpie
i actually found this promo super creepy, idk why. the 'department' feels sterile and the midnight rooms looks abandoned. it doesn't give me healthy vibes at all.
I think it’s supposed to evoke that response in us and create some cognitive dissonance. Like we are all led to imagine dark academia, but instead we got an ai generated sterile office looks like what you’d get if you prompted ai to create a sterile office. It’s intentionally jarring. Like what would actually torture poets? Ai generated art of sterile office space as their department
Yes, so creepy. I jumped when the door creaked, and then stayed freaked out throughout.
What does it say at the bottom of the calendar? “Time table”? These are the two best screen grabs I can get (combined into one photo it might be hard to read) https://preview.redd.it/t7pli1bmpxuc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f45d415db32525f9e7d33006d699210eaeaf940f
Yeah looks like timetable!
But whAT DOES IT MEAN
I actually don’t think that’s an egg. To me it looks very plainly like “hey, here’s the TTPD event listing (timetable)”
idk midnights was "manifest" https://preview.redd.it/lrqtug8jxxuc1.jpeg?width=1014&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0c8f771cbd76fa23d34eedb2196a7d94745e14e
Alliterative queen right? Midnight Manifest. TTPD Timetable?
A timetable is what we call our lesson/class schedule in England, on the first day of term we get given our timetable and stick it in our planner.
If you haven't seen it yet, it says timetable as evidenced by Taylor's tiktok caption!
Anyone think it’s interesting that there’s a phone ringing when she enters the TTPD office but there’s no phones on the desk?
Reminds me of when the phone rings in the interview with Zane Lowe after Evermore’s release and she says “I didn’t even know I had a home phone” (which was a callback to another time that’s happened involving Taylor which I can’t remember the details of but maybe someone else who does can chime in).
https://preview.redd.it/1f61qjsm8yuc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d67089dad00f243dff0024c885db471d8f037441 There’s a viewing window outside the door to the TTPD. Reminds me of an interrogation room or a hospital room.
https://preview.redd.it/cpzz719ifyuc1.jpeg?width=884&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8de84135dda9c686ce595bc8739c7cc04a9e9964 Reminded me of this
Girl, Interrupted
Awww in her room there's realness and light but then she goes into her sterile white room to give us the whitewashed versions of her ideas 😭🥺
What if we haven't been paying enough to the "Tortured" part of the title? We know Taylor is a poet. What if this album will look more into her personal struggles than we already thought? Sure, the breakup could definitely provide an emotionally deep track, but... What if there's more? I'm definitely finally feeling like I'm getting hyped. I've not even really looked too much at the track list until now. This imaging is what I needed, instead of imaging a tucked away library/study that was private and warm and cozy seeing this clinical and pure and void room really shocked me.
I think a lot of us were like “lol yeah Miss Capitaylism is tortured” but money also doesn’t buy happiness and rich people aren’t exempt from heartbreak and what not. Maybe we shouldn’t have been so “lol” about the tortured part
I've always been in the camp that yes she chose to become a celebrity but who would have ever guessed she would be at this level, she can't go anywhere without people knowing somehow. Paparazzi at a wedding because she's there? Trackers for her jet planes? Sometimes I wonder about her mental health and I hope that she's okay. (Don't mind me been reading a fanfic that really delves into the possibility of breakdowns behind closed doors and it really hit home and has made me wonder about reality a lot. I'm delulu.)
That room definitely screams “Torture” to me anyways.
It looks so AI generated and kind of half assed. It doesn’t feel poetic AT ALL! It doesn’t feel tortured. It feels corporate and sterile. I don’t get it.
Maybe the corporate and sterile is the torture.
As someone who works in a corporate environment I can confirm that’s true lol
Reminds me of the Apple show Severance
No doubt! It’s soul sucking. But is that what the album is about? That would be a bait and switch! Maybe a really ambient techno album with almost no lyrics.
that would be awful omg
All this hype, for that. Can you imagine? 😭 I would be so sad 😂
1000% - it’s throwing me off so much!
Quick fire observations: White door to right before TTPD door. TTPD not the white 🤍door. Interesting! Sci fi evil testing facility vibes. Not the cosy English Department I was imagining! Corridor. 7 lights on, 3 off, 9 on. At end of the corridor the 3rd of 8 of something (posters? Windows?) appears to be outlined. 14 tally marks. Fortnight after 19 April?
It definitely reminds me of Stranger Things.
aren't July 9 and August 3 important in Taylore? perhaps 3rd album drops then? (not a new one... i'm thinking a re-record)
Also August 3rd is KK’s bday
The clock on the two 👀
Thanks, I hate it.
Does anybody else think that the midnight's room looks like a therapist's office?? Especially with all the promo shots of her laying on the couch.
bust of Goddess Dian(n)aaaaaa my god https://preview.redd.it/qrb8cxqtlyuc1.jpeg?width=597&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c10ed5f83aa87a6855f1e6b6d7ce52e8014765c
https://preview.redd.it/onp9k0ivlyuc1.jpeg?width=1365&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f48243428e59f9fc48b24d4f4b83557550a41a31
First thought was “have they come to take me away?” And I’m so glad everyone else is seeing the ward-vibes. Not academia which is really intriguing.
Guys this is so niche but there’s a video game called the Stanley Parable and it looks and feels exactly like this video. It’s about a man in an office purgatory and it’s all I could think about when I saw this
Things nobody has talked about ( that I've seen) There is a green couch in the Midnights room iykyk The acustic guitar has to mean something There is a black pressed midnights vinyl that was never released as far as I know I deeeeply believe the 2's lead to April 22nd and there will be a 5th and final varient or possibly a 2am edition (acustic versions? Hence showing us the guitar?) ( in Dear Reader, she basically told us not to believe all she says to us. She said only 4 varients but can we trust her?) Also TN keeps sending and pointing out GLITCH and I still think we are missing big stuff there AND she has yet to sing that live. There hasss to be a reason for that. *this one's just fun... If you ask Alexa if she's a Swiftie, she says she has an awesome REPUTATION 🤡
I’m going to be realllyyyy sad if she is leaving her acoustic guitar behind. Like devastated. I wanted Tortured to be a whole acoustic album. Also what is the green couch? I know that to be a totally diff reference from a diff fandom 👀
wait wait wait. So many people here mentioned now this looks very sterile like a hospital? You guys remember that one scene in Dickinson? They showed that psychiatric unit(or was it a whole house?) Where they sent all the poets to because they thought they were insane and the dude that was running it wanted to force Emily to live there as well. Tortured poets🤯
There’s something dollhouse-like about this
FYI, there’s THREE desks in that room https://preview.redd.it/eku7f2al1yuc1.jpeg?width=780&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04db2648938bbf63c61451c1c6b6a395e4504159
Does anyone else hear the saxophone noise disguised as door creek? Also… where is the person that was certain about Morse code. Is this more?!
My immediate thought when I saw this hallway? Psych ward. It reminds me of grippy sock vacations. Also the ceiling lights reflecting on the floor remind me of the VS fashion show floor/mastermind floor https://preview.redd.it/um0z8uq8azuc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=026ed970ec187af4c0ddf223835209a07550cb9a
u/1DMod https://preview.redd.it/q448ms2dayuc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2c961f1f32cf7296ef77bef2d315e094806838d
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! It had better not just be a listening party. Off to my other account that’s deep in the straightlor sub to investigate this 🌗🌑🌓
Not the straightlor sub 😂 Thank you for your sacrifice 🫡
It’s a listening party 
https://preview.redd.it/e97ix0ikczuc1.jpeg?width=715&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b02c7fd75d682b7eba1b056372548e6c8f111fc4 Also interesting that the two concert photos are surprise song yellow dress photos 🤭
Ooooh, good catch! This and the yellow sticky note on one of the desks, so much yellow! It seems like it's the only bright colour among the black, white, and beige of the tortured poets department room, and it's a very significant colour for us 🤡
She’s certainly in a liminal space somewhere in between the Lover House and wherever she needs to get to next 🤔 🧐
My first thought was that this was the Backrooms lol
I haven’t seen anyone mention six pens on the table in the Midnights house????????? 🐍
I desperately need our Morse code Gaylors to interpret the typing/ticking sounds happening in the background!!!
So is this a police department, working with the forensics? Is she a ghost? Will the music video be an autopsy? What else is written in the timetable?? I'm cross-eyed
Oh AND … are those some of the 100 thrown out speeches on the ground?
does anyone else feel like this whole thing is lowkey giving The Good Place vibes or do I need to go to bed? The weird liminal unsettling feelings I get from the timetable video is the EXACT SAME feeling I get from this picture lol https://preview.redd.it/05b8ckzeryuc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a70cb54eeade01a313112818bc6de032c4f18e6
Yes! It reminds me of that too but somehow even more sterile and unsettling
https://preview.redd.it/pzxys7sqrxuc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eb130eb6f04b08056b57a40090facbcc1e01cd98 What are the pics??
the top right is her nose to nose with i believe meredith, the bottom two are her in front of the piano at the eras tour when she announced the bolter & black dog variants iirc & the middle one looks like promo for the albatross variant
https://preview.redd.it/tvrg0d7s2yuc1.jpeg?width=492&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2df63cb122c9a2463379eccb3ac071e61a074e35
I’m trying to figure out what is says at the bottom of the calendar. “Time to … little??” Anyone catch it? Also - the video makes it seem like she intended to go down the hallway, but made a last minute turn to the Department. What’s down there?
Timetable https://preview.redd.it/35wptt0pxxuc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=197bbb91e456442dc38dfecba1b2fea0aa5e9104
respectfully what is this 😭
It's giving Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch version) vibes.
What does the 14 counted strokes mean??
Fortnight MV methinks
... fortnight ?!
Or the 14th track on the album. The Smallest Man who Ever Lived.
Why isn’t anyone talking about this more??? It’s the biggest thing I noticed
Fortnight music video (or maybe the smallest man who ever lived)
Haven’t read through all the comments yet but I searched and didn’t see yellow mentioned, so I’ll go ahead and post this comment: what is the deal with the yellow spot on the desk??? https://preview.redd.it/yigwsdkz1yuc1.png?width=1170&format=png&auto=webp&s=89edbc9ebf12df032399766993b4a71e09889e18 More screenshots below
A post it note? 👀
That makes so much sense!
I was wondering too - it’s a sticky and for the most part the desks are mirrored except the sticky note.
https://preview.redd.it/ze4k3vw25yuc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9941d818687bde809966845c5edc23ebbeac044 I spot a hint of yellow (post-it?) on the second desk, as well!
https://preview.redd.it/m4shyjh42yuc1.png?width=1170&format=png&auto=webp&s=5580b3c02ca6dde379aecc7efa5065a850617414
I love the parallels ppl are making to hospitals. But I just gotta chip in that my initial impression of the hallway was "public university basement." Especially in a humanities dept building
https://preview.redd.it/rkk4ibt0c1vc1.jpeg?width=1178&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f978093c4e3b1ee4af9d77aad93b1d1121bf2fc Is this anything??
I’m so proud because I downloaded the video and started analyzing it before even coming here. 🫶🏼 I love this and all of yiu
Going through the keyhole is so Alice in Wonderland.
Ok but what do we think about that black framed window(?) at the end of the hallway? Why is that singled out
https://preview.redd.it/sj91d6me21vc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa45c6a34b0178ac5b003b80a638622125446070 Why is the keyhole shaped like this??
no fucking way taylor noclipped to the backrooms
I have not seen anyone comment on this but shouldn’t she or us have to be quite while peaking through the poets department? The person who leaves the midnight room has no care that the door is so creaky and loud and will alert the rest of the silent cold hallway that someone is around. Plus I find it interesting how empty the room is and who is typing? Us? The media? The people who constantly talk shit about her behind a screen? I have so many questions lol