Playing with the Swifties is a dangerous game — they are a militarized force with heat-seeking doxing abilities ready to be mobilized at a moment’s notice. But what if you just run away? Zach Bryan pulled that prank on the Swifties on September 18. The kinda-country music singer tweeted out “eagles > chiefs Kanye > Taylor who’s with me.” The tweet came for both Swift (famous Kanye West foe) and her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs tight end. Then, when Swifties began coming for Bryan, the kinda-country music star ding-dong-ditched his entire account and deactivated. Probably a smart move, but screenshots live forever.
Bryan later posted four separate Instagram Stories of explanation on September 19, with the first three all set to different Swift songs: “Fortnight,” “The Albatross,” and finally “Castles Crumbling (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault) [feat. Hayley Williams].” “for the record guys I wasn’t coming for Taylor the other night,” he wrote. “I was drunkenly comparing two records and it came out wrong. I know there’s a lot of stuff that clouds around Ye and I was speaking purely musically.” He later added, “Don’t drink and tweet. Don’t drink and tweet!!” Seems like a reasonable piece of advice, but we do need to know which two records he was comparing. Was it Vultures 2 and The Tortured Poets Department? Because, if so, maybe this was all just Stockholm syndrome.
