Taylor Swift dropped a new music video for her hit single “Delicate” on Sunday and it’s gotten a lot of people talking about it.
But it’s not the catchiness or the choreography that people are noticing. It looks strikingly similar to a Kenzo Jones perfume ad directed by Spike Jonze in 2016. The similarities were first pointed out by a video editor at New York Magazine named Kenny Wassus.
Here’s the Taylor Swift video:
And here’s the original video people are talking about:
Seems like a pretty striking similarity, even to an untrained eye. But Wassus breaks it down.
“Taylor’s ‘delicate’ video is the drunk sorority knockoff of the kenzo ad w margaret quailey,” he tweeted.
taylor’s “delicate” video is the drunk sorority knockoff of the kenzo ad w margaret quailey
— kenny wassus (@kgw) March 12, 2018
lonely/contemplative look off-cam
silly wink faces pic.twitter.com/dS2rR3qGop— kenny wassus (@kgw) March 12, 2018
angry gorilla dance
gesturing wildly at man’s head not paying attn to u pic.twitter.com/e1AWp7WhtB— kenny wassus (@kgw) March 12, 2018
profile tracking shot of militant walk
ballet leap (one v good, the other … not as good — granted margaret qualley is a mutant dance goddess, so taylor was doomed there) pic.twitter.com/fLm2BM1M9b— kenny wassus (@kgw) March 12, 2018
dolly shot out ending w lukewarm smile pic.twitter.com/C7rk2ysFoE
— kenny wassus (@kgw) March 12, 2018
dolly shot in ending w lukewarm smile pic.twitter.com/3sT9rpUPL6
— kenny wassus (@kgw) March 12, 2018
It’s pretty mind-blowing how similar some of these shots are. And other people on Twitter quickly caught on.
Taylor Swift’s “Delicate” video is weirdly similar to the Spike Jonze KENZO World commercial
— Candace Lowry (@TheCandaceLowry) March 12, 2018
What do U think of @taylorswift13‘s new video for #Delicate??? Is it a ripoff? https://t.co/pwYpW0Sa5Z
— Perez Hilton (@PerezHilton) March 12, 2018
The new @taylorswift13 Delicate music video is such an insanely blatant copy/rip-off of the Spike Jonze Kenzo World commercial. The setting, colour palette, choreography, everything.
— Gina Schreuder (@Gina_and_tonic) March 12, 2018
What came first, the Kenzo ad or Taylor Swift’s Delicate music video?ANSWER: the Kenzo ad. ARE THERE NO ORIGINAL IDEAS ANYMORE? lmk.
— molly crabtree (@MollyCrabtreee) March 12, 2018
It’s no secret that Taylor Swift is painstakingly deliberate in her music videos. They’re usually rife with subliminal messaging and dominate headlines for days after they’ve been released. So it’s probably unlikely that she just happened to rip this Spike Jonze piece with absolutely no intention of doing so. Or she could be doing it to dominate headlines and troll her haters yet again. Perhaps we’ll never know.
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