In Act IV: Turning Controversy into Currency, we discussed how The Life of a Showgirl created a perfect storm for fans to turn on one another. Today we’ll talk about a surprisingly positive downstream effect of that conflagration.

Beyond the typical fan theories, vitriol, and in-fighting, there’s something else interesting about the social media fallout from The Life of a Showgirl: the role of the “expert”. Every good internet fight eventually reaches a fever pitch. The apex of the fight, where everything that can be said already has and the talking heads on our feeds seem to just be reiterating old points. Just when everything seems about to die down, there enters the expert.

“Art history for pop fans.”

A hotly debated argument in the fan community centers around whether The Life of a Showgirl lacks Taylor’s trademark lyrical depth as a result of her relationship with NFL player, Travis Kelce. (As Taylor said in a previous album, “(he) knows how to ball, I know Aristotle.”) Literary experts have come out of the woodwork to weigh in on the use of Shakespeare in the album as a key piece of evidence on both sides.

Some of these online experts have been quick to claim that Taylor misunderstood, or worse misrepresented, the character of Ophelia in the first track, ‘The Fate of Ophelia’. They typically go on to argue that because the song is about Taylor being saved by a man, specifically her fiancé, it’s an improper interpretation of the play’s themes. Ophelia was condemned to her fate by men, not saved by them. And if Taylor had just read Hamlet before she wrote the song, she would know that.

This was, of course, swiftly followed by other Shakespeare scholars jumping in to explain that, no, actually, Taylor’s interpretation is a faithful one – because Taylor is not saying Ophelia was saved by a man’s love but that she was saved from Ophelia’s fate, being driven mad by men who were hellbent on controlling her (which is a parallel to Taylor’s own experience in her fight to regain ownership of her music, rather than a reflection on her personal relationship).

This online debate has all the hallmarks of Swifties’ other arguments – two sides deeply entrenched in their own views, arguments in the comments, remixes, responses, and re-hashing of talking points. The only difference here is that somehow along the way, we’re getting an “inadvertent” lesson on Hamlet.

Emphasis on the quotation marks.

It may be worth noting that Taylor has cheekily referred to herself as “your English teacher” in her Instagram posts. That she giddily professed her love of Shakespeare when discussing The Fate of Ophelia music video in its theatrical release. And that she very intentionally chose to mirror the painting Ophelia by Friedrich Heyser in her music video and album cover. And, because of that, hundreds of her fans are now flocking to the Hessische Landesmuseum to see it in person.

It’s almost like the dominoes cascaded in a line.

Music Ownership 101

The lessons don’t end there. Another prominent controversy in the community surrounds music ownership. As I mentioned earlier, many of the songs on this album sound like other songs (though what songs they sound like seems to be a matter of opinion). One song on the album, “Father Figure” interpolates George Michael’s original “Father Figure” and credits him as a songwriter. These two things – a set of songs that sound like other songs + crediting an artist she borrowed lyrics from –  set the internet ablaze with debate about whether Taylor “interpolated” or “sampled” other artists without credit.

Let me tell you how much I now know about interpolation – a word I don’t think I had even heard outside the context of mathematics before all this. Within two days of the album’s release I watched a video from someone with a PhD in music rights walking me through an exhaustive PowerPoint on music ownership law. I have seen dozens of musicians explaining what sampling is. I now know why so many pop songs sound alike and why chord progressions can’t be copyrighted.

Taylor – whether intentionally or not – has managed to educate the internet on not one but two topics she has repeatedly and publicly said she cares deeply about.

And she did it without a single word.

Epilogue

The Life of a Showgirl and its rollout have touched every surface of the internet. It spotlighted the beauty of community, uniting a fractured fandom around a common goal and making them feel like part of something bigger. It illuminated the path down a darker road – showing how easy it is to fall into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. It capitalized on people’s desire to look for meaning – or to rip it apart – in the quest for social capital. And it leveraged the wisdom of the crowd to provide an unexpected education on everything from Shakespeare to music ownership.

Whether you were incidentally caught in the explosion of orange glitter that accompanied the release or went all-in to drive around Las Vegas at 10pm searching for an orange door, everyone on the internet has been touched by The Life of a Showgirl. And whether you choose to stay at the surface, letting her music wash over you, or decide to dive into the deep end of theorycrafting, there’s no end to how far you can go.

I can’t say for sure whether all of this was intentional – whether Taylor really is the mastermind her fans make her out to be – but I can tell you one thing: no one understands the internet like Taylor.

Genevieve Conley Gambill is a researcher, strategist, and the creator of Tiny-Data.tech. She is also a Swiftie. Opinions here are my own and do not reflect my employers, past, present or future. This blog is made without the use of AI. Photo by Matt Riches on Unsplash