WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.379 Band -Aids don't fix bullet holes. I mean, it's 00:00:03.379 --> 00:00:04.679 one of those lines, isn't it? You hear it one 00:00:04.679 --> 00:00:07.139 time and it's just, it's stuck in your head for 00:00:07.139 --> 00:00:10.140 like a decade. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It was the 00:00:10.140 --> 00:00:12.939 caption on a million Instagram posts back in, 00:00:12.980 --> 00:00:16.739 what, 2015? Exactly. Welcome back to the Deep 00:00:16.739 --> 00:00:18.920 Dive. Today, we aren't just talking about a Taylor 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:22.239 Swift song. We're talking about bad blood. And, 00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:24.320 you know, I want to approach this a little differently 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:28.000 because when I look back at the 1989 era, this 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:31.800 track. It kind of feels like The Anomaly. How 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:33.840 so? Well, it wasn't the best written song on 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:35.719 the album. It wasn't the catchiest. In fact, 00:00:35.719 --> 00:00:38.719 a lot of critics, they absolutely hated it. And 00:00:38.719 --> 00:00:40.579 that's the paradox we're here to unpack, right? 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:43.359 Yeah. How does a song that critics called, I 00:00:43.359 --> 00:00:45.679 think, petulant was one word. Directionless. 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:48.140 Directionless. How does that become a Grammy 00:00:48.140 --> 00:00:50.759 -winning, record -breaking juggernaut? It feels 00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:52.560 like a glitch in the matrix. So to figure this 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:54.920 out, we've pulled a massive stack of sources. 00:00:55.060 --> 00:00:57.380 We've got the original reviews from places like 00:00:57.380 --> 00:01:00.259 NME and The Guardian that were surprisingly harsh. 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:02.619 So had the interview transcripts from Rolling 00:01:02.619 --> 00:01:05.200 Stone and GQ. That's really where the whole narrative 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:07.400 got built. Right. And we're even looking at some 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:10.840 academic papers on feminism and celebrity culture 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:13.379 to really understand the whole squad phenomenon. 00:01:13.420 --> 00:01:16.120 I think the squad is key. But before we even 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:18.019 get to these supermodels and the explosions, 00:01:18.280 --> 00:01:21.140 we have to look at the music itself, the foundation. 00:01:21.560 --> 00:01:25.959 Because Bad Blood really represents a very, very 00:01:25.959 --> 00:01:29.659 specific moment in her career. The pivot. the 00:01:29.659 --> 00:01:33.700 pivot. This was the 1989 album, late 2014. This 00:01:33.700 --> 00:01:36.299 is the moment she officially, you know, killed 00:01:36.299 --> 00:01:39.019 off the country music persona. Completely. She 00:01:39.019 --> 00:01:41.400 traded the banjo for the synthesizer. She said 00:01:41.400 --> 00:01:43.859 she was inspired by late 80s synth pop. Yeah. 00:01:43.939 --> 00:01:45.939 And to make sure she nailed it, she didn't just 00:01:45.939 --> 00:01:48.319 hire a producer. She hired the architects of 00:01:48.319 --> 00:01:51.000 modern pop. Max Martin and Shellback. The Swedish 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:53.040 heavy hitters. Yeah. These guys are basically 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:55.560 scientists when it comes to crafting a pop hit. 00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:58.450 The executive produced the whole album. But here's 00:01:58.450 --> 00:01:59.890 the thing that gets me. When you listen to the 00:01:59.890 --> 00:02:01.890 original album version of Bad Blood, you know, 00:02:01.909 --> 00:02:03.829 the one that dropped before the famous remix, 00:02:04.129 --> 00:02:07.489 it's weirdly stripped back. It is. It's really 00:02:07.489 --> 00:02:10.310 minimal. It's driven almost entirely by these 00:02:10.310 --> 00:02:13.909 like stomping, booming drums and these pulsing 00:02:13.909 --> 00:02:16.490 keyboards. It's aggressive, sure, but also kind 00:02:16.490 --> 00:02:18.750 of hollow. The New York Times made this really 00:02:18.750 --> 00:02:21.229 specific comparison that I had never caught before. 00:02:21.949 --> 00:02:24.530 They said the drums sounded like Billy Squire. 00:02:24.650 --> 00:02:27.610 The big beat, right. It's this classic rock track 00:02:27.610 --> 00:02:30.569 from the 80s that, funnily enough, became one 00:02:30.569 --> 00:02:32.969 of the most sampled drum breaks in hip hop history. 00:02:33.169 --> 00:02:36.210 So she's channeling that arena rock chanting 00:02:36.210 --> 00:02:39.770 vibe. Exactly. NME called it a bitter stomp and 00:02:39.770 --> 00:02:42.740 said it evoked the Beastie Boys. Which makes 00:02:42.740 --> 00:02:44.879 sense. It's really more of a chant than a melody. 00:02:45.020 --> 00:02:46.659 And that simplicity was where the critics just 00:02:46.659 --> 00:02:48.699 dug in. I was actually shocked going back and 00:02:48.699 --> 00:02:50.879 reading how negative the initial reaction was. 00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:53.360 It was so polarizing. So on one side you had 00:02:53.360 --> 00:02:56.099 a publication like The Quietest enjoying the 00:02:56.099 --> 00:02:58.599 attitude. They called it sass and bile. They 00:02:58.599 --> 00:03:00.659 liked the aggression. But then you have Clash 00:03:00.659 --> 00:03:02.879 magazine. They were just brutal. They called 00:03:02.879 --> 00:03:05.300 it a litany of cliches said to directionless 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:08.539 thumps. Ouch. Directionless thumps. That's gotta 00:03:08.539 --> 00:03:11.960 hurt. And the record called her delivery petulant. 00:03:12.539 --> 00:03:15.620 And, you know, even today, when you look at retrospective 00:03:15.620 --> 00:03:18.319 rankings from Rolling Stone or Paste, Bad Blood 00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:20.400 is almost always near the bottom of her entire 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:22.780 discography. Musically, it just didn't have the 00:03:22.780 --> 00:03:26.240 complexity of style. Or Blank Space? Not at all. 00:03:26.340 --> 00:03:28.979 So if you're Swift and her team, you've got this 00:03:28.979 --> 00:03:31.300 song that critics are calling the weak link. 00:03:31.599 --> 00:03:34.479 The logical thing to do is bury it, right? Leave 00:03:34.479 --> 00:03:36.680 it as an album track and move on. But she didn't. 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:39.240 She made it the fourth single. Why? Because the 00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:42.039 song had something the other tracks didn't. It 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:45.099 had a narrative. A very public, very juicy narrative. 00:03:45.319 --> 00:03:47.819 The feud. Precisely. I mean, the lyrics are about 00:03:47.819 --> 00:03:50.500 betrayal. Did you think we'd be fine? Still got 00:03:50.500 --> 00:03:53.530 scars on my back from your knife. It's not subtle. 00:03:53.590 --> 00:03:55.990 Not at all. But she took it a step further in 00:03:55.990 --> 00:03:59.469 Rolling Stone interview in September 2014. I 00:03:59.469 --> 00:04:01.289 remember this so clearly. She basically tells 00:04:01.289 --> 00:04:03.110 the interviewer, look, this isn't about a guy. 00:04:03.150 --> 00:04:06.849 It's about another female artist. And she gave 00:04:06.849 --> 00:04:09.349 very specific details. She said this person was 00:04:09.349 --> 00:04:12.090 a close friend who tried to, and I'm quoting 00:04:12.090 --> 00:04:16.029 here, sabotage an entire arena tour by hiring 00:04:16.029 --> 00:04:18.350 people out from under her. Which is brilliant 00:04:18.350 --> 00:04:21.129 because it moves the drama from a romantic breakup, 00:04:21.250 --> 00:04:23.970 which everyone expected from her, to like a corporate 00:04:23.970 --> 00:04:26.730 dispute. It's about business ethics. It was a 00:04:26.730 --> 00:04:29.589 genius deflection. She told the press she wanted 00:04:29.589 --> 00:04:31.889 to clarify it wasn't about a boy to avoid the 00:04:31.889 --> 00:04:34.589 usual gossip. But really, she just swapped one 00:04:34.589 --> 00:04:36.790 kind of gossip for another. And it ignited a 00:04:36.790 --> 00:04:39.350 wildfire. Everyone immediately started trying 00:04:39.350 --> 00:04:41.490 to connect the dots to Katy Perry. The touring 00:04:41.490 --> 00:04:44.800 history, the shared dancers. It all fit. It fit 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:47.160 perfectly. Chuck Klosterman wrote a great analysis 00:04:47.160 --> 00:04:50.860 of this for GQ. And he argued that by being ambiguous, 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:54.199 but also giving these very specific clues, she 00:04:54.199 --> 00:04:56.240 propagated the existence of a different rumor. 00:04:56.439 --> 00:04:59.459 She gamified the song. Exactly. You weren't just 00:04:59.459 --> 00:05:01.600 listening to a track anymore. You were trying 00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:04.399 to solve a puzzle. That's marketing genius. But 00:05:04.399 --> 00:05:06.779 a narrative can only carry a song so far. If 00:05:06.779 --> 00:05:09.699 the music is just directionless thumps, people 00:05:09.699 --> 00:05:11.220 aren't going to keep listening on the radio. 00:05:11.459 --> 00:05:14.170 And that brings us to the second pivot. May 2015. 00:05:15.050 --> 00:05:17.670 Swift decides to release it as a single, but 00:05:17.670 --> 00:05:19.370 she knows the album version isn't strong enough, 00:05:19.389 --> 00:05:21.310 so she overhauls it completely. And in comes 00:05:21.310 --> 00:05:23.350 Kendrick Lamar. Which at the time was a huge 00:05:23.350 --> 00:05:25.209 curveball. I mean, you have the Polish princess 00:05:25.209 --> 00:05:28.029 of pop and the king of West Coast hip hop who 00:05:28.029 --> 00:05:31.850 is fresh off releasing To Pimp a Butterfly. It 00:05:31.850 --> 00:05:34.269 felt like two different universes just colliding. 00:05:34.290 --> 00:05:36.129 But it wasn't just him adding a verse, was it? 00:05:36.129 --> 00:05:38.029 The whole production changed. Oh, it had to. 00:05:38.459 --> 00:05:41.259 They brought in a producer named Ilya, and he 00:05:41.259 --> 00:05:43.579 didn't just polish the track. He modernized it. 00:05:43.660 --> 00:05:46.399 He added trap beats, those fluctuating hi -hats, 00:05:46.399 --> 00:05:48.560 these resonant kick drums. Which was the sound 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:51.680 of 2015. That trap influence was starting to 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:53.819 take over the charts, and she just jumped right 00:05:53.819 --> 00:05:56.259 on it. It gave the song the weight that the original 00:05:56.259 --> 00:05:59.759 was missing. And honestly... Lamar's verses did 00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:02.259 a lot of the heavy lifting. The Guardian called 00:06:02.259 --> 00:06:04.439 the collaboration a masterstroke. They felt his 00:06:04.439 --> 00:06:06.420 verses were potent and sort of covered up the 00:06:06.420 --> 00:06:08.680 simplicity of the chorus. Pretty much. And it 00:06:08.680 --> 00:06:11.480 worked. The remix shot to number one on the Billboard 00:06:11.480 --> 00:06:14.160 Hot 100. And here's a stat that just blew my 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:17.579 mind. That was Kendrick Lamar's first number 00:06:17.579 --> 00:06:20.000 one hit. Wait, really? Yes. The guy who wrote 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:23.199 All Right and King Kunta? His first number one 00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:26.459 was a Taylor Swift remix? It was, which just 00:06:26.459 --> 00:06:28.860 goes to show the sheer commercial power she had 00:06:28.860 --> 00:06:31.800 at that moment. The song broke the record for 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:34.420 most single -week plays in the history of the 00:06:34.420 --> 00:06:37.060 pop songs chart. Wow. But let's be real. The 00:06:37.060 --> 00:06:40.439 radio play was huge, but the cultural explosion 00:06:40.439 --> 00:06:44.370 that came from the video? Because Bad Blood wasn't 00:06:44.370 --> 00:06:46.850 just a music video. No, it was a summer blockbuster. 00:06:47.089 --> 00:06:49.269 Directed by Joseph Kahn, produced by Swift herself, 00:06:49.589 --> 00:06:52.170 it premiered at the Billboard Music Awards. Just 00:06:52.170 --> 00:06:54.089 the premiere itself was a statement. And the 00:06:54.089 --> 00:06:57.750 aesthetic was this pure, like, neo -noir, Sin 00:06:57.750 --> 00:07:00.250 City, Tron, Kill Bill kind of vibe. But it was 00:07:00.250 --> 00:07:02.189 the rollout that I found so fascinating. It was 00:07:02.189 --> 00:07:04.709 the birth of the squad. The marketing for it 00:07:04.709 --> 00:07:06.970 was relentless. Every day, a new character poster 00:07:06.970 --> 00:07:08.670 would just drop on Instagram. And it wasn't just, 00:07:08.750 --> 00:07:11.350 here's Selena Gomez. No, it was Selena Gomez's 00:07:11.350 --> 00:07:14.740 R - Listen, Lena Dunham is Lucky Fury. It was 00:07:14.740 --> 00:07:17.699 like the Avengers. You had Gigi Hadid, Zendaya, 00:07:17.939 --> 00:07:20.560 Cindy Crawford, Jessica Alba. I mean, she was 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:22.899 basically saying, look at my Rolodex. Look at 00:07:22.899 --> 00:07:25.600 the army I can summon. The Washington Post commented 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:27.860 on exactly that. They saw it as this display 00:07:27.860 --> 00:07:30.680 of raw power. It wasn't just about friendship. 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:34.360 It was about status. She had the access to mobilize 00:07:34.360 --> 00:07:36.759 the biggest names in entertainment for a four 00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:39.379 minute video. And the plot mirrored the real 00:07:39.379 --> 00:07:42.899 life feud perfectly. Swift is Catastrophe, Selena 00:07:42.899 --> 00:07:45.680 Gomez is Arsene. They're fighting together and 00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:48.639 then boom, betrayal. Arsene kicks her out of 00:07:48.639 --> 00:07:50.920 a skyscraper window. Band -Aids don't fix bullet 00:07:50.920 --> 00:07:53.759 holes. Exactly. Catastrophe survives, creates 00:07:53.759 --> 00:07:55.819 this training camp for supermodels and comes 00:07:55.819 --> 00:07:58.839 back for revenge. It ends with this huge face 00:07:58.839 --> 00:08:02.300 -off in a burning London. It broke the Vivo 24 00:08:02.300 --> 00:08:05.000 -hour viewing record with like 20 million views. 00:08:05.319 --> 00:08:07.180 But this is where the conversation gets a little 00:08:07.180 --> 00:08:09.540 more nuanced. Because while the video was a massive 00:08:09.540 --> 00:08:12.459 hit, The critical analysis of the squad wasn't 00:08:12.459 --> 00:08:14.259 all positive. Yeah, this is where the whole mean 00:08:14.259 --> 00:08:17.120 girls critique started to come in. It was divisive. 00:08:17.139 --> 00:08:19.540 So on one hand, you had Time magazine praising 00:08:19.540 --> 00:08:22.839 it. They saw it as Swift finally shedding her 00:08:22.839 --> 00:08:25.220 victim narrative. She wasn't the girl crying 00:08:25.220 --> 00:08:27.079 with her guitar anymore. She was an action hero. 00:08:27.279 --> 00:08:29.980 But on the other hand, isn't there something 00:08:29.980 --> 00:08:33.149 a bit... exclusionary about it. That was the 00:08:33.149 --> 00:08:35.929 big debate. The Irish Times called it a cult 00:08:35.929 --> 00:08:39.009 of personality. The Times compared it to a mean 00:08:39.009 --> 00:08:41.789 girl style clique. And the main criticism was 00:08:41.789 --> 00:08:45.529 that this brand of feminism felt like a VIP section. 00:08:45.750 --> 00:08:48.110 Right. Some scholars argued that it represented 00:08:48.110 --> 00:08:50.769 a feminism that's only accessible if you are, 00:08:50.830 --> 00:08:54.340 you know, wealthy, famous and. Conventionally 00:08:54.340 --> 00:08:56.899 gorgeous. It's sort of reframed female friendship 00:08:56.899 --> 00:08:59.019 as a weapon. You're either on the team or you're 00:08:59.019 --> 00:09:01.299 the target. And there was an ironic twist that 00:09:01.299 --> 00:09:03.139 a literature scholar named Hannah Laura Roth 00:09:03.139 --> 00:09:06.080 pointed out. In the video, Kendrick Lamar's character 00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:08.860 is named Welvin the Great. He's basically the 00:09:08.860 --> 00:09:11.080 boss. He sits behind the desk while all the women 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:14.500 train. So you have this. supposed anthem of female 00:09:14.500 --> 00:09:16.980 empowerment but a guy is still technically in 00:09:16.980 --> 00:09:19.360 charge roth's argument was that by structuring 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:22.000 it that way the video actually replicated the 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:23.740 patriarchal structures it was trying to fight 00:09:23.740 --> 00:09:27.840 yeah so it's a complicated legacy but complexity 00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:30.340 didn't stop the awards it won the grammy for 00:09:30.340 --> 00:09:32.860 best music video and it saturated the culture 00:09:32.860 --> 00:09:35.460 so deeply that we started seeing parodies everywhere 00:09:35.460 --> 00:09:37.740 you know you made it when how it should have 00:09:37.740 --> 00:09:42.100 ended there's a version bat blood a classic But 00:09:42.100 --> 00:09:43.759 there were serious parodies too, right? There 00:09:43.759 --> 00:09:45.899 were. There was a really notable one about the 00:09:45.899 --> 00:09:49.440 UK tampon tax using the song's aggressive fighting 00:09:49.440 --> 00:09:52.019 spirit to protest taxes on sanitary products, 00:09:52.200 --> 00:09:54.700 which shows the song had crossed over from just 00:09:54.700 --> 00:09:57.899 being a pop tune to being like... a vehicle for 00:09:57.899 --> 00:09:59.980 protest speaking of different versions we have 00:09:59.980 --> 00:10:01.720 to talk about the covers we have to talk about 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:05.100 ryan adams ah the ryan adams 1989 cover album 00:10:05.100 --> 00:10:07.440 that was such a strange interesting moment in 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:09.940 music history he covered the entire album in 00:10:09.940 --> 00:10:11.919 the style of bruce springsteen's nebraska so 00:10:11.919 --> 00:10:14.879 he took bad blood a song that is defined by its 00:10:14.879 --> 00:10:18.200 huge production and booming drums and just stripped 00:10:18.200 --> 00:10:21.139 it completely naked turn it into this old country 00:10:21.139 --> 00:10:24.909 folk pop ballad it's melancholic it's sad I have 00:10:24.909 --> 00:10:26.990 to say, I actually kind of liked it. It felt 00:10:26.990 --> 00:10:30.429 honest. Well, critics were split. Spin actually 00:10:30.429 --> 00:10:33.970 preferred it to Swift's version. They said he 00:10:33.970 --> 00:10:36.370 stripped away the sneering obnoxiousness of the 00:10:36.370 --> 00:10:38.929 original and found a real song underneath it 00:10:38.929 --> 00:10:41.889 all. But Billboard disagreed. Billboard thought 00:10:41.889 --> 00:10:44.870 it was the worst cover on his album. Their argument 00:10:44.870 --> 00:10:48.029 was that Bad Blood relies so heavily on its sonic 00:10:48.029 --> 00:10:50.629 distinctiveness, the bombast, the production, 00:10:50.789 --> 00:10:53.009 that when you take that away, there's not much 00:10:53.009 --> 00:10:55.090 of a song left. Which brings us right back to 00:10:55.090 --> 00:10:58.350 the original question. Is Bad Blood a good song 00:10:58.350 --> 00:11:01.070 or is it just great production? That is the enduring 00:11:01.070 --> 00:11:03.429 question, isn't it? So fast forward to 2023. 00:11:03.769 --> 00:11:06.690 We're in the Taylor's version era. Swift is rerecording 00:11:06.690 --> 00:11:09.850 her catalog. We get 1989 Taylor's version. And 00:11:09.850 --> 00:11:12.240 the big question was. Does Kendrick come back? 00:11:12.419 --> 00:11:15.200 And he did. Which was amazing. Swift called it 00:11:15.200 --> 00:11:18.240 surreal and bewildering that he agreed to re 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:20.600 -record his verses almost a decade later. So 00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:22.480 did the re -recording change our understanding 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:24.799 of the song at all? Or was it just a copy -paste 00:11:24.799 --> 00:11:27.600 job? Musically, the arrangement was almost identical. 00:11:28.019 --> 00:11:30.559 She wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel. She 00:11:30.559 --> 00:11:33.519 was trying to devalue the original master. But 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:36.039 a lot of critics noticed the vocals had shifted. 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:39.730 Better. Worse. Just different. Some felt her 00:11:39.730 --> 00:11:42.470 vocals sounded angrier, maybe with more depth 00:11:42.470 --> 00:11:46.289 and maturity. Rolling Stone UK called it astounding. 00:11:46.590 --> 00:11:48.929 They felt the added years gave her voice more 00:11:48.929 --> 00:11:51.149 authority. But Pitchfork was still not impressed. 00:11:51.529 --> 00:11:54.190 Pitchfork remained critical, yeah. They called 00:11:54.190 --> 00:11:57.350 the re -recording bratty and boring. Their argument 00:11:57.350 --> 00:12:00.149 was basically that a woman in her 30s rehashing 00:12:00.149 --> 00:12:04.350 a high school -style feud from her 20s just didn't 00:12:04.350 --> 00:12:06.799 land the same way. That's a fair point. The anger 00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:10.000 of 2015 might not fit the vibe of 2023, but the 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:11.539 fact that we're still talking about it and that 00:12:11.539 --> 00:12:13.639 the rerecording still did massive numbers, well, 00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:16.639 it proves the strategy worked. Absolutely. If 00:12:16.639 --> 00:12:18.799 you zoom out, Bad Blood is just a masterclass 00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:20.860 in narrative control. So let's recap the journey. 00:12:21.220 --> 00:12:23.539 We started with an album track that most critics 00:12:23.539 --> 00:12:26.299 called The Weakest Link on 1989. And through 00:12:26.299 --> 00:12:28.460 a strategic remix with the hottest rapper in 00:12:28.460 --> 00:12:30.799 the world. A weaponized marketing campaign with 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:33.250 a squad of supermodels. In a music video that 00:12:33.250 --> 00:12:35.470 was basically an action movie. She turned a B 00:12:35.470 --> 00:12:38.129 -side into a cultural phenomenon. She didn't 00:12:38.129 --> 00:12:41.090 just release a song, she created an event. And 00:12:41.090 --> 00:12:43.090 it highlights her ability to reinvent her own 00:12:43.090 --> 00:12:46.570 image. In the You Belong With Me days, she was 00:12:46.570 --> 00:12:49.309 the underdog on the bleachers. With bad blood, 00:12:49.529 --> 00:12:51.529 she became the cheer captain and the football 00:12:51.529 --> 00:12:53.990 team and the owner of the stadium. Right. It 00:12:53.990 --> 00:12:56.149 was this aggressive declaration that she wasn't 00:12:56.149 --> 00:12:58.250 asking for permission anymore. And that transition 00:12:58.250 --> 00:13:01.740 is what the 1989 era... was all about. So here's 00:13:01.740 --> 00:13:04.059 a thought to leave you with today. We live in 00:13:04.059 --> 00:13:07.039 an era now where squads are digital. You have 00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:10.279 influencer houses, collab videos, public beefs 00:13:10.279 --> 00:13:13.360 played out on TikTok duets. Did bad blood write 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:15.720 the playbook for how modern celebrities fight 00:13:15.720 --> 00:13:18.519 their battles? Is it less about who has the better 00:13:18.519 --> 00:13:21.259 art and more about who can mobilize the biggest 00:13:21.259 --> 00:13:23.519 army of influence? That is the million dollar 00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:25.500 question. It certainly feels like it changed 00:13:25.500 --> 00:13:27.710 the rules of engagement. Something to think about 00:13:27.710 --> 00:13:29.990 the next time you see a carefully curated group 00:13:29.990 --> 00:13:32.309 photo on your feed. Thanks for joining us on 00:13:32.309 --> 00:13:33.570 this deep dive. Until next time.