Taylor Swift mural with a QR code in Chicago: What does it mean?
A mysterious mural appeared in Chicago’s River North on Tuesday, with a giant QR code. But what it means has Taylor Swift fans scratching their heads.
Love her or hate her, one thing that you have to admit is that Taylor Swift is a master of marketing. She is another in the grand tradition of Madonna and Beyonce, who maintain a tight control on their image and celebrity, with no step random, no move that is not calculated.
And that is the very thing that has Chicago’ Swifties frustrated. This mural can’t possibly be just a mural. This QR code can’t simply be a random link. For the record, here is the content of that code:
It is a YouTube video of a white “typewritten” page and the words “Error 321″ typing on. Below them is the number 1 in the margin. The screen then rolls and repeats.
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A similar note to the Error 321 message appeared on Swift’s website back in February, just hours before she had announced “The Tortured Poet’s Department” at the 2024 Grammy Awards. It read:
“Error 321 Backend fetch failed
Backend fetch failed
hneriergrd
DPT: 321
Varnish cache server”
The jumbled “hneriergrd” turned out to be an anagram for “red herring.” And “DPT: 321,” read backward, hinted at the new album’s title, “The Tortured Poets Department.”
The Taylor Swift fans who came by to see it had tons of guesses, ranging from the pedestrian to the arcane.
Whitney Hansen came to watch the mural being painted Tuesday afternoon and said, “I think it’s going to be Easter eggs for a music video that’s coming out. I think she’s going to release a music video at like 3 a.m. Friday.”
Swift’s newest album, “The Tortured Poet’s Department,” comes out Friday.
The mural began to come together Monday and is filled with the letters “TTPD,” and the number 13. NBC’s The Today Show describes these as “telltale signs” that the mural and QR code are meant for Swifties.
Dani Filip Bermudez also came to see the mural and said, “We’ve got the three ‘TTPDs,’ followed by four ‘13′s.’ If you do Taylor math, you add up the threes and ones, and you get 16, which is today’s date. But I’m still waiting for more.”
Jess Dennsion came to see the mural before starting work and said, “We haven’t seen anything big involved fan-wise (in Chicago) since ‘Reputation’ when she came out and surprised the fans. We haven’t seen any hands-on Taylor action since Rep, so this is really nice.”
Dennison said that she definitely thinks Swift is counting down to something, and since it is on YouTube, her best guess is a music video for one of the unreleased songs.