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As with any new Taylor Swift album, the world has lost its mind analysing lyrics and tearing apart the songs for glimpses into her life.
Speculated diss tracks and ‘tradwife’ lyrics continue to be a hot topic, but Swifties have a major complaint when it comes to The Life of a Showgirl.
Fans were shocked when what seemed to be AI-generated videos surfaced online, appearing to promote Taylor’s 12th album.
It comes as tensions in the creative industry rise after the first-ever AI-powered ‘R&B singer’ signed a $3,000,000 record deal, and an ‘AI actress’ debuted.
The Opalite singer, 35, has previously been outspoken about AI usage when deepfake explicit images of her were made and distributed online.
This led to X blocking any search of ‘Taylor Swift AI’ on their site last year to prevent the manufactured images from circulating.
What are the rumoured Taylor Swift AI videos?
This so-called ‘Orange Door’ campaign was kicked off when fans googled Taylor’s name, with a little orange heart appearing on the bottom of the screen.
Once fans clicked the button a message reading ’12 cities, 12 doors, one video to unlock’ floated up the page.
Fans then needed to repeatedly click the fire heart emoji button — mirroring the one Taylor used in her Instagram post for the new album — as individual letters fell onto the screen.
These letters spelt anagrams which have since been decoded as the following cities: London, Paris, Milan, Berlin, Barcelona, Melbourne, and US cities of Chicago, Nashville, New York, Santa Monica, Las Vegas and Beverly Grove in California.
The page then continues to drop animated orange doors, with no further information offered.
Some fans then reported seeing physical doors appearing in the listed cities with a QR code on them.
‘MELBOURNE DOOR FOUND At Melbourne Central,’ wrote tayvis8789 on X, sharing pictures of the door which had ’12’ written on it.
The QR code then supposedly took fans to the teaser videos on Taylor Swift’s official YouTube channel.
However, the links shared are no longer working and the YouTube Shorts are not visible on Taylor’s channel.
What do The Life of a Showgirl AI videos show?
Each city is said to have a different video; however, only a handful have been found.
The London video shows a bar, with a toy carousel and Ferris wheel moving, before heading into a backstage dressing room.
Another clip, dubbed the ‘Paris video’ features a garden full of nature with a Greek-inspired statue, reminiscent of Taylor’s previous music videos.
A third video shows a luxury dressing room again but this one is a direct copy of that featured in the Fate of Ophelia music video, with a cat hiding under a chair.
The AI accusations began when fans pointed out a coat hanger in the London video, which appeared to have two hooks that merged into one as the camera shifted.
The toy Ferris wheel in the same clip was also accused of being blurry; meanwhile, other videos had odd textures like Berlin’s cat’s fur.
Some fans did defend the clips, stating that it could just be CGI with some glitches rather than full AI videos.
What are the supposed Taylor Swift AI videos for?
It’s unclear what the intention was behind the doors; possibly a large Easter egg hunt, as fans claimed letters were found in the footage.
When put together, they reportedly spelt: ‘You must remember everything but mostly this: the crowd is your king.’
The Crowd is Your King was a vinyl variant released for The Life of a Showgirl, promoted with the cinematic launch party.
According to online sleuths, not all the doors have been unlocked yet but if you Google this line from one of the poems (found on her vinyls) the orange emoji appears again.
An orange door, mimicking the final door of the Eras Tour, drops down, and you ‘knock’ once more to enter, taking you to The Fate of Ophelia official lyric video.
This function was only reached after 12million fans ‘knocked’ on the door, with that number now over 14 million.
The Fate of Ophelia music video has also been released on Taylor’s YouTube after a launch party in cinemas over the weekend.
Has Taylor Swift addressed the supposed AI videos?
Taylor’s social media accounts have not mentioned this campaign so far and the YouTube Shorts are not visible on her channel.
Some fans had posted links for others to view but these no longer work, with a note saying the video is ‘unavailable’.
When Taylor launched the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) Google puzzle, she and her fan interaction account, Taylor Nation, were incredibly active in encouraging fans.
For this campaign, neither has posted anything about hidden clues or discovering doors.
Since the breadcrumbs came through Google, fans have speculated that this may have been made to promote Google’s Veo video maker and AI products as a collaboration.
She has not said anything about the criticism of the supposed AI usage, but has previously slated AI-generated deepfakes.
What have Taylor Swift fans said about the videos?
Fans took to social media to discuss the videos and express disappointment in Taylor for supposedly using AI, although this is not confirmed.
‘Wtffffff happen to art STOP AIIII,’ wrote qxeenbey4 under a post sharing the Paris video, which was filled with flowers, birds and squirrels.
Peterfemmejay said: ‘I was trying to defend Taylor a bit but I can’t defend this at all and I can’t ignore it and I’m very upset bc why is she using AI………….. girl ur a billionaire who spent the last five years reclaiming your art, what are you DOING!!!!!!!!!!’
Dieforyous claimed: ‘Taylor has literally used AI in EVERY of these tloas little visuals 😭 this is literally so bad considering she’s the biggest artist out there right now. Why a billionaire spending YEARS defending their art would need this? terribly disappointing.’
What has Taylor Swift said about AI?
The use of AI in creative works is highly controversial, given that artists’ works need to be fed into its database for images to be generated, which many feel amounts to plagiarism.
Xicoia, an AI company, recently received backlash when they advertised that an actress, Tilly Norwood, was looking for an agent — only she was completely computer-generated.
Concern was quickly raised that the first thing the company did was build an approximation of a young woman, who will never age, completely in their control and unable to say no.
Meanwhile, in music, Xania Monet charted on the Billboard singles charts and landed a $3,000,000 record deal despite being AI.
Creator Talisha Jones used Suno, a Chat-GPT equivalent, to make the singer whose song How Was I Supposed to Know? reached number 22 in the US.
Last year, Taylor publicly spoke out against AI when American President Donald Trump posted an AI picture of her supporting him.
In actuality, the Actually Romantic singer is a longstanding democrat who has vocally thrown her support behind Kamala Harris and against Trump.
At the time, she wrote on Instagram: ‘Recently I was made aware that AI of “me” falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation.
‘It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.’
Metro has reached out to Taylor Swift’s reps for comment.
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