Taylor Swift Made You Do It: Ticketmaster Deal Turns Fans Into Pawns

If unapologetic barrages of twitter traffic and internet scams are any indication of political clout, Taylor Swift could reasonably become the next president of the United States.

T. Swift’s video for “Look What You Made Me Do” debuted Sunday night at the MTV VMAs. Now, emerging from the pixelated ruins of the simple question “What did you think about the new Taylor Swift video?” is the pop star’s partnership with Ticketmaster for a service called Taylor Swift Tix Powered By Ticketmaster Verified Fan. Catchy title, right?

We’re calling it a service because it’s supposed to help get tickets into the delicate hands of teenagers and away from bots and scalpers. But with good service (in the United States, at least) comes the onus to tip heavily—fans are supposed to buy Swift’s album, her merch, and spread the Taylor Swift gospel on every social media platform possible. According to their website, this is Ticketmaster’s “really fun way” of catapulting unassuming customers into a system of boosts that ensures a place in the virtual ticketing line.

Except it doesn’t even ensure tickets.

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As far as the music video is concerned, “Your boosts are automatically applied for up to five views, per day. Watch every day and receive your boosts,” the site says. After brainwashing Sally with white feminism and zombies, they’ll take her parent’s money, provided her parents have money. Sally will have to pre-order Reputation from Target or Swift’s store and then pay an extra $48.03 to receive it on release day (total cost of one Reputation: $63.03). Wealthy Sally can purchase the album up to 13 times and get the golden ticket! Poor Sally can watch the video an infinite number of times and post on social media but frankly—she doesn’t stand a very good chance.

With this new partnership between the empires Swift and Ticketmaster, we can comfortably say the star is back to her “new Taylor Swift” bullshit. Or that she was never far from it to begin with. Forbes reports that the average get-in ticket price for Swift’s 1989 tour was $199.00.

You thought you were going to be able to see Taylor Swift in concert, poor and incognito? Look what you’ve made her do.