Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission. I would spend hours reading plaintext HTML pages detailing the love lives of fictional teenagers in minute, melodramatic detail. So I understand completely where Taylor Swift is coming from. It seems to have been the A-list pop-star equivalent of firing up AO3. Swift has stayed mum about exactly which tracks form the triptych, but her lyrical Easter eggs have not been too hard to decipher.
The backstory too is very Taylor Swift βera Taylor Swift: The whole thing started after a school dance, where James ditched Betty, then, after seeing her dance with some dude, stormed out in a huff. Meanwhile, Betty found out what happened through a gossip named Inez, who will be important later. Betty was so upset that she switched homerooms! But she also throws in subtle signs that James is a bit too immature for the sentiment to stick. But there are still more questions to explore. Ultimately, it works either way.
The music also points in that direction. Listen to the two songs casually, and you would not think they had much to do with each other, in tune or in tone. Consider too that our narrators are speaking to us from two different time periods. In everything that matters, these people are very far apart from each other. Not that high-schoolers never do that kind of stuff, but collectively the tropes feel more earlys. How do we square this?
You could also take it as a sign that Betty and James did get back together, their tumultuous relationship spanning past high school and into early adulthood. This email will be used to sign into all New York sites.
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