It’s Christmas in July! On Sunday night, Kim Kardashian started the latest phase of what might be the greatest celebrity gossip story of our time, Snapchatting what she claimed was proof that Taylor Swift really had approved Kanye West’s rap about her in “Famous,â€Â contrary to what the pop star had always claimed. Soon Swift fired back on the Notes app, and suddenly all of Hollywood was embroiled in a nasty civil war. Brother against brother, father against son, Calabasas resident against Calabasas resident. What did we learn?
Twitter really is the worst.
As you might expect, both Swift and Kardashians “squads†came out on Twitter to support their champions. The pro-Swift party line quickly gelled into “Let’s talk about the real issues in the world†— an angle that backfired in Selena Gomez’s case — while Khloé Kardashian’s contribution was Tweeting a creepshot of a random girl’s anus at Chloë Grace Moretz. Twitter: If you haven’t been, never go there.
Taylor may have composed her response beforehand.
As many people have noticed, Taylor’s Notes screenshot redirects to “search,†indicating she likely wrote the note far enough in advance that she had to look for it later. (Possibly because this whole feud is fake???) A careful analysis also reveals a fragment of text above the “official†statement that suggests she was trying out different lines of defense before Kardashian leaked the footage. By the time the day is over, this Note will be pored over more times than the Shroud of Turin.
Kim may have broken the law.
Did Kim violate privacy laws by recording Taylor’s conversation without her knowledge? Taylor reportedly thinks so, as TMZ reports she threatened to sue under California’s “two-party consent†law. However, if Kim and Kanye were located in a “one-party consent†state like New York when they recorded the call, they may be in the clear, though the legal precedent is as grainy as the Snapchat footage.
Instagram is deleting dozens of snake emojis.
After some prompting by Kardashian, fans started deluging Swift’s Instagram page with snake emojis, a unifying symbol of anti-Swift sentiment, thanks to Katy Perry. Until, suddenly, they couldn’t: Long strings of the snake emoji were suddenly banned from Swift’s page. (A Select All investigation has found that short-enough strings of the emoji could make it through the filter, only to be deleted later.) The swift response has been noted: Though Instagram does have a process to report abuse, many users have complained about the app’s seeming laxness about online harassment when it’s not directed against millionaire pop stars.
The Hiddleswift conspiracy theory has more juice.
Recall that those infamous photos of Swift and Tom Hiddleston were snapped just the day before the GQ interview that set off the feud went online. Noting the timing, the Cut’s Allie Jones ventured that the whole Hiddleswift relationship is just a nakedly stage-managed attempt at diverting attention away from the issue. Now that we know Kim wasn’t lying about Taylor lying, this outlandish conspiracy theory is looking less outlandish by the day.
Calvin Harris might have a new girlfriend.
Congratulations, Tinashe!