Taylor Swift recently finished a series of seven performances in the Australian cities of Melbourne and Sydney, and while she primarily performs the exact same setlist at every show, she incorporates two “surprise songs” that change each night. For Swifties, hoping to get your favorite Taylor track as a surprise song at your show is common, but one Swiftie had an atypical reaction to “losing,” i.e., not being present for the performance of one of her favorite Taylor Swift songs.


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A fan named Maddie posted a video of her and two friends sitting outside Sydney’s Accor Stadium, a practice known as “Taygating” (like tailgating, get it?), something fans do when they aren’t able to get tickets to that particular show. They’re sitting on the ground waiting to hear which surprise songs Swift will perform, which is presumably why Maddie is filming, to record their reactions, when she starts performing a piano version of “exile,” a track Swift collaborated with Bon Iver on for 2020’s Grammy-winning folklore.


As soon as she realizes that Taylor is performing the song that Maddie explains “saved her life,” she screams and collapses into her friend’s arms, as her friends look on in concern, swapping looks and seemingly trying to stop themselves from laughing at the absurdity of the situation and the extreme reaction. The friend holding Maddie repeatedly shakes her head at the other friend, as if to say, “Don’t say anything, don’t laugh, don’t react,” which would be difficult if your friend were weeping like she’d just experienced the death of a close family member in response to hearing a song.



Twitter users were, unsurprisingly, ruthless, with many suggesting Maddie has a mental illness (or that being a Swiftie is a mental illness in and of itself, which, ouch), although one person got a little analytical, writing, “the mental illness isn’t the crying, which is fake, it’s the filming of the fake crying. the theatrics and narcissistic ownership of a song someone wrote without you in mind.”



The recording of the crying is one thing — presumably Maddie didn’t know she’d be crying when she started filming — but the uploading is another, and a choice I can’t quite understand myself, although photos and videos of people crying do seem to be more popular with younger people, potentially in an attempt to bring authenticity to social media platforms that otherwise feel very artificial. Unfortunately, this performative crying feels artificial in and of itself, negating any appearance of authenticity or realness. In the full version of the video, Maddie cries for a minute and a half as her friends sit there awkwardly.


While she missed out on hearing “exile” live, Maddie was able to attend Eras Tour concerts in both Sydney and Melbourne. Hopefully, looking back, she’s able to focus on those memories and not the fact she was exiled for one particular song.