Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ Announcement Is So Cringey

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty/Screenshot/TaylorSwift

At midnight on Monday, Taylor Swift did the thing: She announced her new album, Midnights. While she technically revealed her upcoming tenth release during Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards, a Swift album doesn’t actually exist unless it’s anointed with her highly personal artist’s statement.

Say what you will about her songwriting. (Most people do say very good things.) But after a decade of attempts, it’s time we come out and say it: Swift’s creative writing skills leave much to be desired.

It’s never been more clear to me that Swift has never participated in a creative writing workshop than now, with her Midnights reveal write-up. Her Instagram post has a late-night, diarying-while-laying-in-bed aesthetic, accompanied by what I’d call “Tumblr blog post 2012”-level writing at best.

“We lie awake in love and fear, in turmoil and in tears,” she writes. “We stare at walls and drink until they speak back.” To which I say: Whomst are the “we” you speak of? I absolutely have never spoken to a wall, nor have I heard back from one.

She continues: “We twist in our self-made cages and pray that we aren’t – right this minute – about to make some fateful life-altering mistake.” Again, please do not speak for me, Tay. I blame my parents for making my personal flesh cage, for one. And this is a weirdly intense concept either way; may I recommend therapy?

She goes on to explain in more coherent fashion what the genesis of Midnights was. It’s middle-of-the-night music! But Swift immediately complicates this otherwise cogent concept. If you don’t cringe reading this next section, I wish I had your strength:

“[It’s] a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching – hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve … we’ll meet ourselves.”

What. What? Why is this the time you insert a rhyme, especially when it’s that uninspired? What is this “lanterns lit and go searching” metaphor? Why are our lanterns lit if we’re lying in bed? What are we searching for? How did we lose ourselves? It sounds like we are pretty intensely aware of ourselves, considering we’re praying for our lives!

Story continues

Most of all, if this album was written “in the middle of the night,” I have to wonder when Swift goes to bed. If we’re already freaking out about our dreams before midnight, she must be lying down by, like, 8 pm. Gotta say, I do respect that part, at least!

But all of this is to say that of course the memes started hitting hard, not long after this post went live. “Why does this look like a Lexapro ad,” one person tweeted, nailing the aesthetic in one sentence. The post’s accompanying photo is Swift sitting on a chair in a dark room, holding her head in her hands—peak antidepressant vibes.

The combo of the text and that melodramatic image is what people are leaning into most. Another user doctored the post into an actual mental illness awareness post: “Mental illness isn’t always easy to see,” it notes, in perfect pharmaceutical ad font. And someone else noted all the side effects that Midnights will likely give you, upon ingesting.

These two tweets both condense all of Swift’s rambling words into the point. She looks miserable here! I guess, to be fair, aren’t we all?

And last but not least, a perfect meme crossover. If anyone can rival Swift’s “in my feelings” energy here, it’s AMC spokeswoman Nicole Kidman, and her unforgettable words about cinema-going.

The album cover is also highly memeable. Swift holds a lighter up close to her face—dangerous!—and invites some other good jokes. I’m partial to the ones mocking her Earth-killing use of private planes.

I want this next tweet to become Swift lore. Swift wishes she could write something as viscerally provocative as “a cuntress who realizes she’s lost everything. he’s hung up on oomf. it’s over.”

This one also provides food for thought. Is Swift swallowing an AirPod, actually? It’s possible!

Swift’s likely unedited, vaguely stream of consciousness, high school diary entry of a post is only a brief hindrance though. The world’s excitement is overpowering; she’s got more than six million likes on the Instagram post already.

To fans, Midnights’ October 21 release date will be a national holiday no matter what. TS10 is coming, baybee! Terrible writing and very good memes be damned!

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