If there were a Billboard chart for most lied-about celebrity, singer Taylor Swift would be number one. Her unprecedented level of fame has led to legions of wackjobs and online cranks making up all kinds of weird stuff about her. Everyone has probably heard the NFL-is-fixed theory by now, but there’s so many more, so let’s take a trip down the Swiftian rabbit hole and dig up some of the strangest conspiracy theories about everyone’s favorite singe-slash-intelligence agent-slash-spy novelist-slash-Nazi-slash-satanic clone.
Taylor Swift is part of a government-back mass psy-ops campaign
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The Taylor theory du-jour contends that Swift is a key player in a Pentagon-led psychological operation aimed at getting Joe Biden reelected president in 2024. The plan required employing Swift as a government agent, engineering a fake romantic relationship between Swift and Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce, then convincing the NFL to fix the 2023-2024 football season to ensure a Chiefs Super Bowl appearance. It all came together beautifully, and will end on Sunday with Taylor Swift appearing at halftime of the big game to endorse Joe Biden.
This kind of froth-mouthed fever dream used to be distributed through leaflets left at bus stations, but we’ve gone so far around the bend that prominent people like Fox New’s Jesse Watters and failed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy have endorsed and amplified parts of the narrative, prompting the actual Pentagon to respond. “Listen, you nit-wits, Taylor Swift is just some singer. Stop being so weird,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh did not exactly tell Politico. “I mean, fuck, look at you people. Jesus,” they did not add.
Taylor Swift is a novelist who writes under the name “Elly Conway”
Officially, Elly Conway is a young author whose debut spy novel was adapted to the screen in the movie Argylle. But Conway’s social media footprint is suspiciously light. A first-time novelist’s unpublished book inspiring at $200 million film deal is suspicious. More suspiciously, there are no known photos of Conway, and her official biography is two lines long. This all led to the theory that Taylor Swift is actually the Conway. The evidence: the fictional character of “Elly Conway” in the Argylle movie looks and acts a little like Swift and has the same type of cat.
This week, it was revealed that there never was an Elly Conway; It was just movie biz marketing all along. There was no spy novel. The only Argylle book is the one based on the movie, not the other way around, and it was written by Terry Hayes and Tammy Cohen, both established authors. Taylor Swift had nothing to do with any of this. Also: Argylle is getting bad reviews.
Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelce for his money
This tweet from alfalfa male Nick Adams sums up another Swift/Kelce conspiracy theory:
Credit: Nick Adams – Twitter
Swift, a literal billionaire, has not commented on the rumor.
Taylor Swift is secretly gay/bi
NFL conspiracy-theorist are almost all non-Swift fans, but one of the most persistent rumors about the singer comes from within her own fandom. They call themselves “Gaylors,” and they think that Swift is gay or bi. Despite her much-discussed relationships with various gentlemen and her public statements to the contrary, Gaylors think Swift reveals the real truth about her sexuality only through the coded messages she leaves in her songs and videos. Because she’s a fan of The Riddler.
Taylor Swift is a Nazi
Back in 2016, before Swift publicly endorsed LGBT rights and vowed to take down Donald Trump in 2020, some members of the alt-right enjoyed online role-playing games that involved pretending Taylor Swift was secretly a Nazi.
“Taylor Swift is a pure Aryan goddess, like something out of classical Greek poetry. Athena reborn,” Andre Anglin, a huge nerd, wrote on incel website The Daily Stormer. He went on: “Taylor Swift is secretly a Nazi and is simply waiting for the time when Donald Trump makes it safe for her to come out and announce her Aryan agenda to the world.”
Taylor Swift is a Satan-worshipping clone
Credit: Lara Diaz – Medium
Taylor Swift bears a passing resemblance to Zeena Schreck, the daughter of Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, leading to the reasonable, normal belief that they are the same person. “But, Steve,” you might be saying, “Schreck was the high priestess of the Church of Satan from 1985 to 1990, and Swift wasn’t born until 1989, so how could it be?” Well, genius, it can be, because Taylor Swift is a clone.
Swift is but one of a number of Schreck copies that were created around 1990 to spread the word of Satan across the earth. Swift has left clues pointing to this dark fact in her videos, like there’s a pyramid in one, for instance. And they do look a bit alike, so there’s no denying it. Case closed.
Taylor Swift was on 4Chan
Back in 2013, a theory spread on 4Chan that one of the site’s users was actually Taylor Swift. A lot of screenshots and evidence was either uncovered or manufactured to prove that an anonymous 4Channer was actually Tay-Tay. The most telling: Someone on the site claimed to be a famous entertainer. This one could actually be true though. This theory is at least possible: Swift was 23 at the time, and a lot of 23-year-olds are on 4Chan. You can also see how posting somewhere anonymously might appeal to someone as famous as Swift. None of this is evidence, of course, and there’s ultimately no way of knowing if it’s true—it’s not like 4Chan users have any credibility. But I want it to be true. Anyway, if you want to dig into this nonsense further, you can start with this YouTube video from Whang.