Is Taylor Swift more powerful than Google?
Her fanbase, known as Swifties, might just be.
For those who don't know (and those who do), Swift is rerecording her old albums with "Taylor's Version," along with previously unreleased tracks on each.
Swift is famous for her "Easter eggs" and making things fun for her loyalists, so she's created puzzles to reveal the titles of those tracks. The superstar linked with Google for a new series of online puzzles for the upcoming "1989 (Taylor's Version)" release.
The search engine explained on Tuesday how it was all supposed to work.
"Search for "Taylor Swift" in the Blank Space (ahem, a Search bar). Click on the blue vault and solve one of the word puzzles. It may take a second, since there are 89 puzzles to get through (a la "1989 (Taylor's Version)") — don't say we didn't warn ya!," as per a Google blog post. "But nothing lasts forever. You'll be helping Swifties around the world get out of the woods (or unlock the vault) as everyone collectively solves 33 million puzzles. And that's how it works, that's how you get the vault track titles!"
Swift also announced it was happening on her verified social media.
Great idea! However, so many people responded they seemed to crash the system.
Naturally, social media being what it is, people were both striving to make it work and complaining when it didn't.
"Swifties, the vault is jammed! But don't worry, there are no blank spaces inside," Google tweeted on Tuesday. "We're in our fix-it era and will be out of the woods soon."
Nothing says "we see you" like incorporating Swift song titles whem explaining why people couldn't access some Swift song titles.
Indeed, Google was later able to shake it off.
"Swifties, we made it out of the woods! Bridges, built. Codes, cracked. Vault, opened," the company tweeted Wednesday.
Swift has had quite the year so far with her mega successful "Eras Tour," sweeping wins at the MTV VMAs and speculation over who she may or may not be dating.