Taylor Swift Fan Hides Identity Because She Called In Sick To Work

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About

Taylor Swift Fan Hides Identity Because She Called In Sick To Work is an exploitable image of a Taylor Swift fan standing in line for the Taylor Swift merch truck with a blanket and sunglasses over her head to hide her identity, which was captured during a news interview while she was skipping out on work. The interview was uploaded to the WLKY News Louisville YouTube channel in late June 2023 and the image gained viral spread across social media over the following days, inspiring memes, reactions and redraws of the screenshot.

Origin

On June 29th, 2023, the WLKY News Louisville YouTube^[1] channel posted a news segment in which the reporter stands outside among a group of people lined up for the Taylor Swift merch truck. She interviews a woman who called in sick to work to attend the concert and is wearing a blanket over her head and sunglasses over the blanket to hide her identity (shown below). The video gained over 33,000 views in a week.

A photo of the report taken from its premiere on television started going viral online the next day. On June 30th, the Facebook^[2] page Ojalá fuera un edit, pero no lo es shared a photo of their TV with the story on it, garnering over 360 shares and 2,100 reactions in six days (shown below). It was also posted to their Instagram^[3] page, ojalafueraunedit, garnering over 9,600 likes in the same span of time.

Spread

The image gained viral spread across numerous social media platforms over the following days. On June 30th, 2023, it was posted to /r/funny^[4] and to the Stereogum Facebook^[5] page, garnering over 95,000 upvotes on the former and 1.5 million reactions and 138,000 shares on the latter in a week.

On July 1st, Twitter^[6] user @TheSwiftSociety shared it, writing, "A swiftie wearing an "Anti-Hero" costume because she called in sick to work," garnering over 80,000 likes in five days (shown below, left). That day, Instagram^[7] user missdoublebay posted a meme attaching an Arrested Development reaction image to the photo, garnering over 5,900 likes in five days (shown below, right). On July 2nd, Instagram^[8] user swiftiesforeternity posted a screenshot of @TheSwiftSociety's tweet, garnering over 90,000 likes in four days.

That day, online artists began to redraw the image, changing various aspects of the image like the blanket and text, to portray a fan from a different fandom hiding their identity. For example, on July 2nd, Twitter^[9] user @kadeart posted a My Hero Academia redraw that gained over 41,200 likes in four days (shown below).

On July 4th, 2023, Twitter^[10] user @seoltangjhmy posted a version of the meme about K-pop artist Agust D, garnering over 11,000 likes in two days (shown below, left). On the same day, Twitter^[11] user @raphelkaegi posted a version about VTuber Tsukumo Sana, garnering over 19,000 likes in a day (shown below, right).

On July 5th, Redditor u/02810y posted a version of the meme to /r/HonkaiStarRail,^[12] garnering over 5,600 upvotes in a day (shown below). On the same day, Twitter^[13] user @Oil_YooN03 posted a redraw of the meme that garnered over 8,900 likes in a day.