TikTok Made Swifties Spiral. But It’s Not Just Them.

Imagine thousands of people awaiting a day in which absolutely nothing of importance is supposed to, let alone confirmed to, happen. They count down the minutes, knowing ⁠ — not literally knowing, of course, but knowing ⁠ — that something exciting will occur, something that will vindicate all their theories. They have a virtual community of people who share in their conviction, their excitement, their obsession with this date as the day everything finally comes together.

And then when that day comes and nothing happens, they share in their disappointment, their frustration, their outright anger.

In many contexts, this would seem like one of those terrifying conspiracy theory communities that the internet has bred, the kind that spirals to the point of real-world danger.

This isn’t that, though. This wasn’t even occurring on a particularly difficult corner of the internet to find. These were Swifties.

In the weeks leading up to May 13, thousands of Taylor Swift fans around the world became absolutely convinced something was coming that day ⁠ — maybe two whole albums, and if not that, then at least one album, and if not that, then at least an announcement.

“Evidence” abounded. 13 is Swift’s favorite number, and she’s been known to drop music and announcements on days related to the number. And since the numbers of 5/13/22 add up to the 13, this was essentially a double 13 date. And it’s a Friday, the day of the week she always releases new music. And the week before she dropped merchandise teasing the re-recordings of her albums Speak Now and 1989. AND last April in an interview she mentioned the number 513. AND it’s been exactly 26 weeks since she dropped a music video that includes the number 26 in it. AND–

You can see how this might spiral out of control.

Personally, I watched the whole ordeal from an arm’s length, finding it entertaining to see the theories get increasingly more ridiculous. But on May 13, when nothing came, it wasn’t really entertaining anymore. People online were genuinely hurt that they had been “teased” and received nothing. And this wasn’t the first time this has happened. Last year, April 30 saw a similar phenomenon within the fandom, arguably on a larger scale. Many fans laugh it off when this happens, making memes about being in a fandom akin to a clown car. But many others went through all the ugly stages of grief over this.

Of course, Swift never actually teased, let alone promised, anything. You could make the argument she created a culture in which “theorizing” was too much of an expectation, leading to this spiral. After all, Swift is known for hiding “easter eggs” — usually pretty obvious ones — in her social media and work. But she’s been doing that since the start of her career, and it’s not until recently that this level of spiraling has occurred.

No, the real culprit here is none other than TikTok.

There is a side to TikTok known as Swift-Tok, and within Swift-Tok, there’s Swift-Theory-Tok, made up of creators who have built their entire brand around theorizing when Swift might next announce or release something. It’s popular content within its niche. Especially in the lead up to “anticipated” dates like May 13, videos can get hundreds of thousands of views, spurred on by comment sections full of users adding their own “evidence,” which can then be spun into yet another video.

The reason this phenomenon exists on TikTok and not on other forms of social media is, of course, the For You Page, which is made up not of creators that users follow, but of content that “the algorithm” thinks the user will be entertained by. The For You page is incredibly smart, even able to bring users back for follow-ups to videos they saw days ago.

As a result, for a creator to build a fanbase, they are strongly incentivized to continue making the same kind of content that they first went viral for. Someone who theorizes about a Swift release-date once may become a full-time theorizer, which becomes a problem when there isn’t anything to actually theorize about, but there’s still an audience for theories. These creators are essentially forced to keep coming up with increasingly ridiculous theories in order to maintain their niche success.

Add in all the other factors that can lead to online conspiracy theories (see: groupthink and confirmation bias), and you end with a fanbase that starts to spiral based on little to no evidence.

What’s remarkable about the whole ordeal, too, is that this isn’t happening on some deep corner of the internet. It’s happening pretty close to the surface. I ended up on Swift-Theory-Tok by simply searching “Taylor Swift” in the app two years ago. On the Taylor Swift Reddit page, a pinned discussion post is literally called “Theories.” On May 12, these theories were a top trend on Twitter.

It’s easy to write off a phenomenon like this as an issue that is specific to the fandom culture that social media has created over the past decade. If that were so, it would be harmless, even funny. But the issues on display aren’t specific to fandoms — it’s happening in every virtual community, including (maybe especially) the most dangerous ones. As soon as someone realizes there’s an audience, they’re incentivized to keep feeding it. What happened to Swifties in the leadup to May 13 is simply the most visible example of how social media, and specifically TikTok, can deteriorate online communities into madness.

In the words of a TikTok I saw on May 13, “I hate to say it….but being a Swiftie has really made me understand how QAnon happened.”