Taylor Swift fans (or Swifties, as they're known) are a fiercely loyal bunch - and Irish band Lankum found out the extent of their bloodthirsty devotion yesterday.
It all began when a Twitter user jokingly tweeted about the similarity between the Dublin trad band's album artwork for 2017's 'Between the Earth and Sky' and Swift's recent record 'Folklore'.
— _odradek⚡ (@_odradek__) October 29, 2020
Lankum innocently ran with the joke, adding that she had also ripped off their video for their song 'Cold Old Fire', saying "get some fresh ideas hun".
Despite the obvious piss take.. The Swifties did not get it and are all OUTRAGED pic.twitter.com/4WAiH2n59m
— _odradek⚡ (@_odradek__) October 29, 2020
It was clearly all in good humour, but it wasn't long before a torrent of abuse was directed at the Choice Music Prize-winning band. Some of it was mild-mannered...
spongebob soundtrack is better than this flop ass band music
— betty? (@bettyorbecky) October 29, 2020
robbing your ideas? she probably doesn’t know who you are
— hannahs gardenミ☆ (@speakfolklore) October 28, 2020
hey besties @LankumDublin I can assure you not a single soul on this earth knows who you are let alone has listened to your music, definitely not taylor swift at that ? just thought I’d let you know
— ❁ kara ❁ (@bettysaugusts) October 28, 2020
However, as they band themselves mentioned, things got very strange very quickly.
It goes without saying that this sort of abuse is not acceptable - but it got to the point that both Taylor Swift and Lankum were both trending on Irish Twitter, with plenty of innocent bystanders having an amusing take on the whole thing...
The reaction to Lankum's mild Taylor Swift joke tonight from her 'fans' is the perfect encapsulation of everything that is so toxic with 'stan' culture.
As ever with these cretins it's never really about defending their hero but more about unleashing impotent rage.
Loathsome.— 📻 ED SMITH 📻 (@EdSmithington) October 28, 2020
Ray Darcy and The Den vs Niall Horan fans
Lankum vs Taylor Swift fans
2020's being a mad bastard.— Tadhg Williams (@Tadhg_Williams) October 28, 2020
dye ever just be offline for an hour and then lankum are being cancelled by taylor swift stans. just Wednesday things x
— Naoise Falafel 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 (@naoisefalafel) October 28, 2020
Only one thing can end the Lankum/Taylor Swift conflict pic.twitter.com/1bwkYahzU4
— Sharon Bitchell-Watts 💙🐝🇵🇸🇱🇧 (@comagirlx) October 28, 2020
There's only one thing for it: a collaboration is surely on the cards. Why not? It's 2020, anything can happen.
