Taylor Swift can never (and will never) do something with simplicity. If you think it’s going to be easy to figure out when her next album will be released, or what music video she’s dropping for TTPD, you have some reevaluating to do.
Swift’s latest installation in her playbook of tricks is an international scavenger hunt through QR codes painted on murals across the world. Fans are so confused about what the QR codes actually mean, and TBH, I’m right there with them.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, allow me to fill you in. On April 16, QR codes started popping up in major cities around the world. The codes were clearly associated with TTPD, as their backgrounds had a ton of repetition of “TTPD” and “13”, which reminded fans a lot of the repetition of “Taylor Swift” on the Reputation album cover. After scanning the codes, users were brought to an “Error 321” page on YouTube Shorts.
On April 17, when the code was scanned, the “Error 321” message no longer appeared. Instead, fans were greeted with a typewriter that spelled out a singular letter. At first, fans were really confused because WTF are you supposed to do with one random letter?! However, after scanning the QR codes in other cities, fans started to realize this was yet another one of Swift’s tricks, likely spelling out the word of a music video, or perhaps, a bonus track included on TTPD.
It’s unclear how many QR codes there are and where all of them are, but fans are quickly working to find all of them and figure out what Swift is spelling. Thankfully, Swifties work harder than the government, so it’s being pieced together pretty fast.
On April 17, X user @japrilsshis posted a thread that shows several QR codes, their locations, and the letter that appeared after scanning. It seems that fans are thinking — with the letters seen in this thread — that Swift is spelling out “Fortnight,” the first track on her album, which features Post Malone. If this is the case, she’s likely spelling this out to announce the release of a “Fortnight” MV on April 19, at 8 PM, which she teased on her Instagram on April 16.
Aside from the “Fortnight” theory, fans are pretty freaking confused about all of this, and I don’t blame them. Blondie never makes things easy, but that’s why being a Swiftie is so fun. However, I’m really struggling over here and I’m not the only one.
Until these QR codes are finally cracked, I’ll be sipping on some tea like the good tortured poet I am while I wait for TTPD.