On Friday, Taylor Swift released her brand-new single and lead track from her seventh album — a collaboration with Panic! At The Disco's Brendon Urie called "Me".
Within hours of the song and video's release, fans launched into investigating all of the hidden details and theorising over what's to come in the TS7 era.
However, after a tweet appeared suggesting that the song was actually recorded as part of the soundtrack for The Secret Life of Pets, fans began casting doubt on whether it was the lead single from TS7 after all.
But then Taylor herself appeared on Tumblr to dispel the rumour. She left this comment confirming that the song will indeed feature on her upcoming album.
And she went on to reveal that the title of TS7 features somewhere in the video, but nobody had come close to finding it yet.
So fans immediately began watching the video all over again to decipher any clues that might lead them to the album's title. Here are some of the best theories so far.
1. Some fans began by interpreting Taylor's comment literally, positing the theory that the album will be called Heart.
They then started looking for further evidence to support the theory, going back through comments Taylor had left on social media over the preceding few days. They found this one in which she tagged five heart emojis — one for each letter of the word "heart" — as well as a caption on Instagram which was signed off on with seven emojis, perhaps to symbolise the fact that it's her seventh album.
If you cast your mind back to last October, you might also remember that Taylor shared several photos of herself with a small black heart drawn just underneath her right eye.
In fact, the heart even featured in the post Taylor shared to announce that she'd joined Republic Records. TS7 will be her first release with the label.
Then, after announcing the release of "Me", Taylor shared this video of herself writing the title across her face. And what completed the exclamation point? Only another black heart.
The video for "Me" was also completely filled with hearts.
Seriously, they were everywhere.
And let's not forget that Taylor actually began the countdown to the release of "Me" — and, by extension, the album — with this image of a bright-pink heart.
2. Other people, however, noted that Taylor hasn't been using a plain heart emoji over the past few months, but one depicting a heartbeat. And so a subtheory has developed suggesting that the album will actually be called Heartbeat or Heartbeats.
3. Other fans took Taylor's comment about the title of the album appearing in the video literally, focusing their attention on the actual words that feature in the video. Some spotted the sign reading, "Lover" in the background of this scene and speculated that this was the name of the album.
4. Others noted that the words "I in team" lit up on the floor of this scene and suggested that the title was Team.
5. And some noticed that the word "me" flashes across the screen on two occasions, leading to speculation that perhaps the title of the album will be the same as the single.
6. One fan used the letters from all the words that appear in the video to form an anagram and deduced that the album will be called Revelation.
Fans even had an explanation for the leftover letters from the other words in the video — "lover," "I in team," and "me" — which don't feature in the word "revelation."
And when some suggested that Taylor would be unlikely to name Reputation's immediate successor with a name so similar, there was a very valid response for that, too.
7. Other fans noted that the album title could be Rainbow or Rainbows, since both feature in just about every frame of the video.
Rainbows have also appeared on Taylor's Instagram page multiple times over the last few months.
And there's also a reference to "rainbows" in the lyrics of "Me".
8. But the rainbow theory has sparked further exploration, with fans noticing the other Wizard of Oz imagery in the video and positing that the album will be called Home.
Fans think that this album will focus on Taylor making it through the negativity of the Reputation era and finding her true self again — in other words, ~coming home~.
Especially since Taylor went back to her childhood house in October last year, sharing this photo of herself in the garden alongside the caption reading, "Take me home."
Fans also drew some pretty compelling parallels between The Wizard of Oz, Taylor's new merchandise, and the video for "Me".
People also drew attention to the Christmas tree in the living room at the start of the video. It seems completely out of place until you remember that Taylor grew up on a Christmas-tree farm — perhaps it was deliberately placed as a reference to the album's title.
And this observation was made, too.
9. Over the past few months, butterflies have appeared multiple times on Taylor's social media posts — both in the content and in the captions.
In fact, the references to butterflies became so great that people started speculating that TS7 might be called Butterfly — a theory that went into overdrive when Taylor commissioned a gigantic butterfly mural in Nashville to mark the release of "Me".
This theory was supported by the fact that a snake explodes into butterflies within the first 30 seconds of the "Me" video, symbolising the end of the Reputation era, which was defined by snakes, and the start of TS7, which will be defined by butterflies.
And other fans noticed that it looks as though the entire "Me" video takes place inside a giant chrysalis, perhaps symbolising the ~metamorphosis~ Taylor will go through this era.
10. Other fans, however, have probed a little deeper, and this is where things get very interesting. Because if you cast your mind back to the Reputation era, you may remember that Taylor wrote a prologue for the album which acted as her only comment on the record, since she refused to give any media interviews.
At the end of the prologue, Taylor wrote about the hope of meeting "someone who ... will still choose us even when they see all of the sides of the story, all the angles of the kaleidoscope that is you".
This was swiftly linked to this lyric from Taylor's song "Welcome to New York".
And interestingly, a reference to that lyric is made in the "Me" video. There's a shot in which Brendon opens the door to a heart on his shirt to reveal a kaleidoscopic tunnel — and Taylor went on to reblog a Tumblr post confirming that the shot was a reference to the lyric from "WTNY".
And then fans began googling and made the discovery that the technical term for a group of butterflies is "kaleidoscope".
People therefore think the butterfly imagery and the words in the prologue mean the title of TS7 will be Kaleidoscope.
Taylor herself went on to respond to the theory during an interview on Smallzys Surgery. When asked whether fans were on the right track, she said she "respected" their musings and would reveal all in due course.
"I'm not gonna comment cause I really do respect their theories so much, I will tell them all of the information when I tell them." - Taylor on the 'Kaleidoscope' theory for the album title of #TS7 [@Smallzy]
11. We all know that 13 is Taylor's long-standing lucky number and something she's obsessed with. Well, this year marks her 13th year in the music industry, and some fans are convinced that the album will be called 13 in a nod to both.
In the YouTube livestream Taylor participated in on the night "Me" was released, she told fans to count the clouds in this scene. And, of course, there were 13.
Some also analysed the snake that appears at the start of the video, and noted that it slithers 13 times before transforming into butterflies, marking the transition from the Reputation era into TS7.
Me and my mom @kristiekonrad think the album title is “Thirteen”. The snake slithers 13 times and on the 13th slither it transforms into butterflies!! Also, you can spot multiple upside down 13’s in the video!!☺️🦋🐍 #MeMusicVideo @taylornation13 @taylorswift13
And when you flip the only words that appear in the video upside down, all the fonts allow them to spell “13”.
And finally, in an interesting twist, Taylor has now revealed in a new interview that the album title has been correctly guessed. Is it something that's in this post? We'll have to wait to find out...
🚨 | Summary of things we’ve learned from Taylor’s interviews (so far): ▪️#TS7 is done ▪️Album title has been correctly guessed ▪️ME! not the first song she wrote ▪️Working on tour schedule ▪️Tour possibly starts in “6 months to a year” ▪️Speaking French is a big clue