First Ticketmaster, then AMC, now Google. Is there any website that can withstand the power of Taylor Swift’s Swifties? On Tuesday (Sept. 19), the pop superstar’s loyal legions of fans crashed a special feature the search engine launched specifically for them.
In anticipation of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) — Swift’s next re-recording, which is slated for an Oct. 27 release — the “Karma” singer teamed up with Google to unload a new batch of hints and Easter eggs for her eagle-eyed fans. Google launched a new pop-up animation Tuesday that prompted fans to collectively solve puzzles to help the Grammy winner reveal the “From the Vault” tracks from the 1989 re-recording.
By typing “Taylor Swift” into the blank space — aka the search bar — a new pop-up would offer one of 89 puzzles. Each puzzle asked the user to unscramble a word and then type the answer into the search bar to solve the exercise and move onto the next puzzle. Swifties around the world had to tackle a whopping 33 million puzzles to “open Taylor’s vault.” Some of the answers focused on Swift herself (her star sign — Sagittarius — was an answer that gained a lot of traction), and others focused specifically on the 1989 tracklist. (“She lost him,” read the answer to a puzzle that boasted the hint “Out of the Woods intro.”)
Swift even showed off the new feature on her Instagram page, writing, “You can tell me when the *search* is over… if the high was worth the pain 😎,” a reference to “Blank Space,” a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single from 1989 that recently re-entered the chart.
Obviously, the promise of the 1989 vault spurred Swifties to mobilize and complete the puzzles with maximum efficiency. Nonetheless, the iconic search engine could not keep up, with the puzzles not popping up for some users. Via its X (formerly Twitter) company page, Google confirmed that the vault puzzles fell victim to some technical difficulties. “Swifties, the vault is jammed! But don’t worry, there are no blank spaces inside. We’re in our fix-it era and will be out of the woods soon,” it shared.
Luckily, the Swifties prevailed, completing the 33 million puzzles, thus revealing four of the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) vault tracks — “Is It Over Now?,” “Now That We Don’t Talk,” “Say Don’t Go” and “Suburban Legends — with a fifth one yet to be revealed.
