In the early weeks of April, news broke out from an unnamed source that Taylor Swift and her boyfriend of six years, British actor Joe Alwyn, had broken up. 

Soon after the rumors hit social media, sources close to both Swift and Alwyn commented on the situation. According to said sources, the couple kept their relationship private, beginning in 2017, which Taylor has verbally stated to be the only way to keep her relationships pure and good. 

Taylor Swift had just recently begun her “Eras Tour”, which sources claim to be a major contributing factor to the couple’s breakup. “The relationship had just run its course” said an unnamed source of the couple. 

After the news initially broke out, fans were quick to hop on social media to share their thoughts and reactions. This sparked arguments between fans, debating whether or not they had actually broken up, or if they should even be investigating the situation at all. 

For the past 6 years, Swift and Alywn have kept their relationship fairly private, only being photographed a handful of times by the press. Swift specifically speaks her truth about the situation in one of her most recent songs, titled “Lavender Haze”. She sings “All they keep askin’ me, is if I’m gonna be your bride, the only kind of girl they see, is a one-night or a wife.”  This depicts how the press can be asking overly personal questions, and her message through this song is for them to stay out of her love life. 

However, there’s always people who feel the need to share their thoughts. Mostly on TikTok, Swift’s fanbase, often referred to as “Swifties”, have been going through a mourning period together. Swifties have been finding video footage of them together and editing it with black and white color and sad music.  

Fans have also been mourning the loss of Swift’s inspiration for some of their favorite songs. User @annaleerivers on TikTok shared, “I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that Taylor Swift is no longer with the person she wrote this iconic bridge about”, speaking about the song “Daylight” from Lover. 

While some fans continue to mourn the love songs, other fans are focusing on the future. Swift has been known in the past for writing some of the best cliche “breakup songs.” User @kyliesstillcrazy on TikTok thinks that Midnights, her newest album, is the breakup album, but it doesn’t fit the timeline that Swift and Alywn’s team released of the breakup. So while some are sad about the breakup, others are excited for the future potential music.  

As The Eras Tour resumes, Swift enters an extremely busy and bustling schedule as her next full weekend not touring isn’t until August. This may be to her advantage; navigating through her own feelings and thoughts at this time could quite possibly be a gargantuan task. Conspiracies and speculation coming from the fans unintentionally adds to this; keeping a consistent schedule could help combat some of the residual commotion. 

Even though Swift is not speaking about the relationship, she is putting increasing amounts of focus and attention towards releasing new music and music videos as well as into the set list of her tour.

During her first show back from her week-long break, Swift altered her set list in the Folklore section of the tour. Instead of performing “invisible string” ,which uses a string as a metaphor for what led Swift and Alwyn to each other, Swift performed “the one”, which takes on a starkly different tone. It makes reference to a relationship where the person that the song is directed at “could’ve been the one.” This change triggered a large response from the audience and fans watching around the world; Swift has been known to show her emotions and opinions in rather subtle ways, such as through posts on her Instagram, her outfits, numbers, or in this case through displays of songs. Acts like this are Swift’s way of conveying her mood to her fans, that she is doing okay and is not remarkably distraught at the surface. This was said to be a rather clean break between Swift and Alwyn. 

The other thing that Swift is shifting focus to is releasing new music and music videos. The first six records she produced, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Lover, were sold and she lost ownership of the original recordings of these songs. However, Swift wrote or co-wrote all of the songs that make up these albums, so with a legal caveat she is able to re-record and re-release these as her own, under the addition of (Taylor’s Version.) Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) have since come out with the addition of new bonus tracks that were written at the initial time of release but did not make it on the record. Fans across the world are patiently and excitedly anticipating the next release, which has created much speculation on its own.

It is also anticipated that Swift will release new music videos either for Midnights, her most recent album, or for one of the re-recordings. Swift herself has not confirmed anything directly, but fans have decoded many Easter eggs she has left in previous music videos, like the one for Bejeweled. 

Even though it was a sorrowful day for many Swifties, there is much anticipation and excitement around Swift’s future music endeavors.