Taylor Swift QR code mural drawing crowds in anticipation of ‘Tortured Poets’ release
Clare Doverspike glanced skyward, along with about 20 other young women, and declared: “This is better than the eclipse.”
What could possibly overshadow so glorious a celestial event?
For Swifties, it happened to be, of all things, a giant QR code painted high up on the side of a building on West Grand Avenue near Dearborn.
Painters atop a bright green scissor lift appeared Monday evening and were still at work Tuesday afternoon. The code — made out of “ttpd” letters and the numeral “13” — an obvious hint for her soon-to-be released album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”
When people scanned the code with their phone cameras, it took them to a 13 second YouTube short attached to Swift’s page. The YouTube short animates like a typewriter with the message “Error 321” and a faded “13.”
Swift is known for posting cryptic messages on social media just before an album release.
Katie Preo, 21, a film student at DePaul University and a die-hard Swiftie, stood on Grand for four hours Monday and was back Tuesday. She tried teasing information out of the painters, but they were apparently sworn to secrecy. She was convinced there was more to the QR code than meets the eye.
“It’s just because Chicago Swifities don’t necessarily get too many new things. It’s usually international or the bigger cities,” Preo said of the hours she spent at the site.
Preo’s “original hope” was that the code would be a link to a “poetry book,” she said.
But she wasn’t sure. She noticed below the code, in the faintest pencil, the words “YouTube shorts.”
“I think she’s going to release either some type of video, possibly a single or lyrics for us to decode,” Preo said. “She’s very much a mastermind.”
“The Tortured Poets Department” is scheduled for release at midnight ET on Thursday.