Taylor Swift Fans Are Convinced Her New Music Will Be About Mermaids

There's nothing Taylor Swift seems to love more than dropping hints to fans about her music. She's been known to hide cryptic messages and clues about her work just about everywhere in the time between album releases: Her clothes, her music video sets, even games of Scrabble. And according to some fans on Twitter, Swift's not giving up that habit in 2019.

Just days after her Reputation stadium tour landed on Netflix, fans sounded the Easter egg alarm on Twitter. Apparently, Taylor Swift been using a handful of outfits during her Reputation promo to hint at the theme of her unconfirmed seventh album, with a surprising source of inspiration: mermaids.

Let's take a look at the evidence.

Earlier this week Swift gathered her squad for a New Year's Eve party where guests were asked to dress up as their childhood heroes. The singer dressed up as Ariel from The Little Mermaid, complete with a red wig and green tail. By itself, the look appears to be just an elaborate homage to the character—but fans say it's more than that.

On Twitter, fans noted that mermaids have appeared in Swift's wardrobe in suspicious places: As a patch on a jacket she wears in the official Reputation magazine, and on a T-shirt she wears in behind-the-scenes footage from the Reputation Netflix special. Take a look:

Fans also pointed out that The Little Mermaid has a special Swift-ian connection to the singer: The Little Mermaid was released the year of her birth, 1989. (Which, as fans know, was also the name of her fifth album.) Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.

OK, so Swift has a long history with The Little Mermaid. But could she be singing about it on her album? Read into what mermaids symbolize and the theory gets even more convincing. Mermaids, according to one user, represent "freedom" and "independence." Another added that Ariel transforms from a mermaid to a human in The Little Mermaid—so the seventh album could be about transformation. Fans are besides themselves about the possibility, natch.

Swift has been known to wear outfits with symbols alluding to her music. Her Reputation era has been marked by snake imagery on her costumes and in her music videos, referencing her feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. She even released a line of snake rings for fans to get in on the look.

She's also hinted that new music—maybe or maybe not including mermaids—is on the way. On stage to accept the award for Best Pop/Rock Album at the American Music Awards in October, she suggested that a new chapter is in the works. "I always look at albums as chapters in my life," she said. "And I'm so—to the fans, I'm so happy that you like this one. I'm so happy that this means that you like this one. But I have to be really honest with you about something: I'm even more excited about the next chapter."

Then, in November she suggested on Instagram that she had signed a new record deal with Universal Music Group and Republic Records, posting a photo with UMG chairman/CEO Sir Lucian Grainge and Republic Records cofounder and CEO Monte Lipman. "My new home," she captioned the picture.

Still, all the theories are just that—theories—until we receive confirmation from the singer. After all, fans have stood by theories that didn't shake out before: Remember when we thought Reputation would be a time-themed album?

For all we know, Swift is just reconnecting with her childhood hero for the moment. We'll have to wait until the seventh album officially appears to see if she's been looking "Under the Sea" for inspiration.

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