American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift has lost almost 1 million Instagram followers after releasing her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, amid backlash over using AI to design her ‘orange door’ puzzle and alternate reality games for album promotions.
The orange door is one of the key Easter eggs and promotional symbols in Taylor Swift’s album. For promotion, Swift launched a global alternate reality game with orange doors featuring QR codes placed in cities including London, Berlin, Nashville, and Las Vegas, where fans scan them to access YouTube shorts with puzzles.
The Life of a Showgirl, dropped on October 3, comprises 12 tracks including Opalite, Wood, Elizabeth Taylor and Actually Romantic.
Though the album received rave reviews, a section of fans criticised the 35-year-old singer for purportedly using AI-generated graphics for the album’s promotional videos.
Many fans pointed out the apparent contradiction, given Swift’s history of advocating for artistic integrity and her battle to regain control over her master recordings.
“Taylor has literally used AI in EVERY one of these little visuals. This is literally so bad considering she's the biggest artist out there right now. Why would a billionaire, spending years defending their art, would need this? Terribly disappointing. and there's more,” wrote an X user.
“Taylor Swift’s team uses AI. This is embarrassing and a new low. After the condemnation of AI, the usage of this is unacceptable. Someone needs to be fired,” reads another comment.
Following the release of the latest album, several Swifties were left disappointed, with some pointing out the “embarassing” lyrics that indicate the singer was “trying to be like Sabrina Carpenter”.
The internet was flooded with posts pointing out that the aesthetics were totally wasted on the album, as the concept and the songs do not match.
“After four listens, I can easily say The Life of a Showgirl is Taylor's weakest effort in her career. Uninspired, flat, disjointed, stale. Sonically had fun moments, lyrically an embarrassment. Painfully immature. I cannot believe this same person wrote So Long London,” wrote a fan on X.
Amid this growing criticism, Swift lost nearly 1 million followers on Instagram. Earlier, her follower count was 282 million in September. After her album was released, her follower count dropped to 281 million.
However, the American singer’s new concert-style film, The Official Release Party of a Show Girl, which serves as a companion to The Life of a Showgirl, debuted at No. 1 at the US box office, minting USD 33 million in North America.
The film was screened across all 540 AMC theatres in the US for three days, concluding on Sunday, and also played in select theatres in Mexico, Canada, and Europe.
On Monday, Swift dropped the music video for The Fate of Ophelia. She also announced eight bonus acoustic version tracks.
