I don’t often talk about music videos but this was one that I had to comment on. Look What You Made Me Do is the newest song by Taylor Swift off her newest album (yet to be released). Tay is coming out with a new style of music now moving ever more away from her country roots. This is much more punky and poppy than what she has done before and is definitely something new. At first I didn’t like it but then I saw the video and now I’m a little obsessed.

The video is ridiculously clever because it shows Taylor how the public and media see her. She’s the queen of snakes, her career is a car crash (literally), her squad is actually just an army of supermodels and anyone who doesn’t fit that ideal can’t be a part of it and so on and so forth. It’s incredibly clever because it shows Taylor knows all about what people say about her and how she’s taken it on the chin, risen above it and it has created the person she is today.

This is shown especially near the end where she says the old Taylor is dead. All her older selves from previous music videos are climbing to get to the top of a mountain with new Taylor stood on top. It shows she’s grown through all these stages and they are what made her who she is today. It’s an incredibly powerful message about having no regrets and staying true to yourself while everyone around you has their own opinions and ideas.

Although the song isn’t the best and is very generic the music video makes up for it massively. It’s a great story with wonderful visuals, good choreography and just an all round good story. It shows how strong Taylor is and whether you love her or hate her everyone is talking about her and in that industry, that’s all that matters.

Below are what each scene of the music video means (in my interpretation) and the video is below for you to watch too!

• ‘Here lies Taylor Swift’s reputation’ on a gravestone showing her reputation is dead…obviously.
• Zombie Taylor from the Out of the Woods video. Shows an end to that era of music and onto a new one.
• Bathtub full of jewels. From a live video at a gig where she talks about how that’s the way the media perceives her. Includes the $1 bill from her court case.
• Queen of snakes. Self explanatory. Also drinking tea, also self explanatory.
• Car crash where paparazzi are taking pictures. The media don’t care about her wellbeing and only about showing off her life.
• Robbing a music streaming vault, shows her relationship with streaming websites and how she only cares about the money.
• The squad being robots and supermodels and not normal people.
• 8 men for 8 ex boyfriends all wearing I ❤ TS shirts like Tom Hiddleston did.
• On the top of the Taylor Swift pyramid as her older versions battle it out to get to the top. Showing the past has made who she is today but she is no longer those people.
• Taylor’s dancing a call back to everyone who said she can’t dance.
• At the end all of her past selves come together and basically pick apart the worst parts of each other that were called out by the media.

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Film and TV critic. View all posts by shonaharding