Taylor Swift has been counting down to what’s likely a new music release on her Instagram, and her fans are desperate for ANY and all clues she may be sharing. The countdown goes until April 26, and Taylor also has the domain http://www.apriltwentysix.com re-direct to her own website, http://www.taylorswift.com. Then, earlier this week, a fan noticed that the web domain http://www.julythirteen.com appeared to be Taylor-related, as well. The website opened up to an image of palm trees against a bright background, and if a user clicked on the picture, it re-directed to a new page with a purple and blue, tie-dyed image.
The palm trees and pastel colors matched up with the bright aesthetic that Taylor has been displaying on her Instagram in recent weeks. Plus, her 2018 Reputation calendar happens to feature a wax seal on July 13, amongst a few others days, so fans are convinced those are important dates (another one is April 13, which is the day Taylor started her countdown to April 26). So, a widespread theory began that Taylor’s seventh album would be dropping on July 13. However, by the evening of April 16, it was revealed that the whole thing was a giant hoax — orchestrated by rapper Lil Nas X!
Now, http://www.julythirteen.com redirects to one of Lil Nas X’s tweets, which reads, “I am a troll 1st and a musician 2nd. period.” YUP, he completely trolled us ALL! Naturally, Taylor fans did not take too kindly to the prank. “I’m a Swiftie and I’m mad,” one person wrote. Another person posted a GIF of Taylor singing “Why you gotta be so mean?” from her music video for “Mean.” WELL, there goes that theory!
https://twitter.com/daydreamkev/status/1118374267643670529
https://twitter.com/mixedrep/status/1118256125416226817
There’s still a lot to look forward to for Swifties, though! Taylor is not being subtle about the fact that something is coming on April 26, and all signs point to it being the beginning of the TS7 era. Plus, she was named as one of TIME’s most influential people, and will perform at the TIME 100 Gala on April 23. Until then, we’ll just be waiting for her next cryptic Instagram post…