It’s been a long, two-month promotional cycle, but Taylor Swift’s Midnights is officially here. While the pop star tried every social media and corporate tactic to build anticipation and participation in the album release, something about the Midnights era just felt off. It left some diehard Swifties wanting more.
Swift is consistently setting new standards for album rollouts and social media engagement across the music industry. In her early career days, she was establishing close bonds with fans through Tumblr conversations and secret listening parties. She took the internet by surprise after ceremoniously cleansing her Instagram and rebranding her account ahead of Reputation’s release. The surprise drop of her folk-era albums Folklore and Evermore won her a Grammy and internet prestige. And by re-recording and releasing her early albums to gain complete ownership of her catalog, she’s setting a precedent for other artists to follow. In many ways, Taylor Swift is the blueprint when it comes to building a successful and long-lasting career. So what felt different about the rollout of Midnights?
It used to be easier to reach fans on social media through different fandom spaces. Now, these online communities are a more complex ecosystem, with TikTok, Discord, Reddit, Twitter, and even Tumblr all having their place — making it more challenging for artists who connect with fans online, like Swift, to have effective, authentic social media campaigns without spreading themselves too thin.
As a music and fandom tastemaker, Swift seems to now be struggling with where to go next — and the rest of us are reflecting on the ways her choices have impacted other artists.
Mashable reporters Elena Cavender and Chase DiBenedetto, two lifelong fangirls, dive into the world of Midnights and celebrity branding.
Midnights Mayhem? No way. Bedtime is at 10 p.m.
Chase: We have to say it. We didn’t like the pre-album cycle. Something about it was off. She was doing too many things, and even though I appreciate that she didn’t rely on her tried and true Easter eggs (which was actually not the case at all), it all still felt half-baked. She had collaborations with every major company: TikTok, Spotify, Tumblr, and Amazon Prime Video. Not to mention, a dozen variants of her album on vinyl, exclusive signed art cards only available at midnight on certain days, and the classic new era merch.
Elena: I am a lifelong Taylor Swift fan, and me and my fellow IRL Swifties all agree that the Midnights promo feels like a return to Taylor Swift™. With all of Swift’s platform partnerships and cross-posting it was hard to keep up with her promo and know where to look.
While the promo for Red (Taylor’s Version) was also TikTok heavy, there was something really endearing about it. Swift tapped into our collective nostalgia, and it felt like more people were on her side in her fight for ownership over her first six albums. I honestly can’t remember an album release that had my corner of social media more excited. With the Midnights release the sentiment in my circles is “c’mon Taylor, you want us to watch Thursday night football? Gimme a break.”
Chase: You’re right. The Red (Taylor’s Version) release felt like the perfect combination of all of her marketing strategies with an added benefit of nostalgia. It appealed to everyone I think, not even just Swift fans. I even had old highschool friends messaging me about our first listen to the original version.
Elena: But even with Red (Taylor’s Version), she tried to get “Nothing New” (the heart-wrenching track about aging featuring Phoebe Bridgers) trending on TikTok by posting clips of herself when she’d “had too much to drink” and encouraged fans to do the same. At the same time the song became an organic trend with users posting images of themselves at 17 to the line “the kind of radiance you only have at 17.” The fan-created trend had more depth and spoke to fans’ connection with the song. That kind of thing can’t be artificially created by an artist’s marketing team.
She’s aiming to create digital trends again with Midnights, but this time it’s through a partnership with YouTube Shorts. The #TSAntiHeroChallenge is exclusive to YouTube Shorts, and any fan activity being pegged to a brand is immediately a turn off.
Chase: Swift used TikTok a lot to promote the Midnights album, too, even partnering with the app again, but it had an artificial note to it. I loved that she revisited her old Tumblr blogs and cringe millennial posting during the Red (Taylor’s Version) release because that felt genuine to the moment and the era. Instead, I didn’t feel any motivation to tune into the nightly scripted videos she put on TikTok.
Elena: Totally, her Midnights Mayhem with me videos felt so stilted!
Taylor Swift, girl, Easter eggs are your whole thing!
Chase: Swift has so much power in the music industry to steer trends. She embraced eras, rebrands, Easter eggs, and drama. But instead of leaning into that again, she backed off. This was probably because she wanted to come off as earnest, but I think that’s the opposite of what happened.
Elena: Album clues are literally a part of her existence as an artist. She created this monster in terms of fans who now look for Easter eggs in everything she does. So why change her strategy for this release? Taylor, just be yourself. Never change.
The mainstreaming of intense fandom behavior and other artists taking note of Swift’s conspiratorial strategy has inspired everyone to take that approach.
Chase: Ideally, I want other artists to never use Easter eggs, and Swift to lean heavily into them. But the opposite was happening! She has to either fully embrace the fact that she’s redefined the industry’s marketing tactics and continue feeding into the Swiftie conspiratorial universe, or seriously scale back on the promotion! She doesn’t really need it at the end of the day, and half-baked promotion cycles aren’t fun.
Elena: The music speaks for itself! As frustrated as I may be by this album’s promotion, ultimately I connect with Swift the songwriter, rather than Swift the brand again.
With the “Midnights Mayhem with Me” series on TikTok, Swift explained the premise of every song on the album, which was a complete 180 from the Folklore and Evermore releases, where we knew nothing. There was almost too much information ahead of the album. It’s nice for artists to give fans the opportunity to interpret a song before traditionally heading to read a magazine profile on their inspiration. Instead, Swift gave us all the information herself weeks ahead of the album, which wasn’t an effective tool to build anticipation and suspense for the album. Those TikToks should have come with a spoiler warning! Though, I do appreciate that there ended up being seven additional songs — that no one knew was coming.
Chase: Her entire brand seems to be relying on a bait and switch with her fans. That would probably backfire with other fanbases, but Swift seems to exist beyond that.
The TikTok-ification of artist branding
Chase: The very obvious elephant in the room that we can’t stop mentioning is TikTok. The music industry, and now the broader celebrity economy, is so wedded to the app and its ability to instantly blow up a song, artist, or video. While new artists are being discovered from TikTok covers and original songs, established artists are now implying that the only way to ensure their releases are successful is if they become viral on TikTok. Taylor definitely uses that to her advantage.
Being so attached to TikTok and its algorithm is a dangerous game, but it helps when you also have big brands on your side, as well as collaborations with the company itself and a legion of fans investing in a multiverse of content.
Elena: Midnights brought to you by TikTok™ and Amazon Prime Thursday Night Football.
Chase: Capitalist first, pop star second?
Elena: The current moment on TikTok is weird for artists, too. Obviously, having a trending audio is a signifier of an artist’s cultural relevance and leads to streams (and money), which can make an artist’s presence on the app feel disingenuous. On the other hand, chances are we’re going to be seeing more and more of this, especially considering TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, filed for a trademark for “TikTok Music,” and seems to be constructing its own streaming platform.
“Taylor Swift is the music industry”
Chase: As soon as Swift announced Midnights, Twitter was flooded with tweets about the “Tumblr Renaissance”, with people noting that OG artists like Taylor, The 1975, Arctic Monkeys, Tegan and Sara, Death Cab for Cutie, and Carly Rae Jepsen were all coming out with albums this fall, following a year of releases from other Tumblr-era artists like Lorde and Charli XCX. While Easter eggs weren’t necessarily part of Tumblr-era music promotion, fandom conspiracies certainly were part of the conversation. Is this where we, as former Directioners, nod to One Direction’s “Larry Stylinson?” We simply don’t have enough words to go into that.
Elena: We definitely saw the mainstreaming of “Gaylor” conspiracy theories in the way that we saw with Larry years ago.
Chase: The Midnights promotional cycle is serving us the same vibes as the weird Harry’s House Easter eggs — which aren’t over, by the way! He’s still launching mysterious fake businesses to promote his suspected new music video, which is coming out months after the album. It’s an advertising strategy he’s never used before until this year.
Elena: I still don’t know what the doors were about, and I’m a diehard Harry fan! What were those random photos that you could literally reverse image search? Styles and Swift both understand that you need to be engaging fans where they gather, the internet, but both of their album promos missed the mark.
Chase: And we hated the Discord channel he launched. So many artists are branching into Discord in ways that seem to cater to super fan communities who are into theorizing, surprise drops, and other forms of mysterious posting — even emo legends Paramore launched a Discord to go along with an even more mysterious website rebrand ahead of their new album. As a long-time fan of theirs, I don’t really understand why they felt the need to do that, unless they are trying to cater to a new (possibly younger or more “online”) audience.
Elena: Marketing teams and celebrities know about the popularity of Easter eggs and are just sitting in a room trying to come up with them.
Chase: The music industry on the whole has been contending with a lot of internal upheaval, not to mention a lot of global pop acts that are redefining the fan-artist relationship, and you can see it reflected in how artists use their social media, whether or not their accounts feel like pure promotion or personalized, relatable feeds. You also have new generations, engaging with live music and fan culture for the first time, dictating the success of established artists in new ways like viral TikTok sounds, trending conversations, and ticket sales. Fans have always ruled online, and they rule the music industry, too.
One final “Question…?”
Elena: What are your favorite tracks off the album?
Chase: “Midnight Rain,” “Karma,” and “Lavender Haze,” definitely. I’m a “False God” stan, so I think that all tracks. What about you?
Elena: “Mastermind”… and “Sweet Nothing.” Songs about Joe Alwyn have got to be one of my favorite genres.
