I have been opening a virtual door every day at 12 p.m. EST for the past 18 days because people on Twitter said it has something to do with Harry Styles’s third album. I have read into every one of Taylor Swift’s posts on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, hoping for hints as to which album will be rerecorded next. To some, these actions may seem desperate. But to fans, this is merely what needs to be done to stay on top of the newest developments in the music industry.

And, as it turns out, the door did have to do with Harry Styles. The account, @youarehome on Twitter and Instagram, was a promotion for HS3 (now officially called Harry’s House, which will be released on May 20, 2022). Taylor Swift announced the release date of Fearless (Taylor's Version) through random capitalized letters in one of her Instagram posts. The fans proved to be right, and this bizarre way of marketing brought more excitement than ever to their album releases.

People love a mystery. Fans love to feel involved. With the endless information about our favorite artists abounding on social media and the internet, it is easy to feel like we are a part of these celebrities' lives. We strive to get more contact, more personal interactions with them. By leaving things up to their fans to figure out, artists indulge in our desperation for involvement in the music we love.

"I love [the Easter eggs] that are released," Alexandra Apadula ‘22, a communications major at SUNY New Paltz, says. "It makes the release feel like the build-up to a surprise party."

The release of albums by artists such as Taylor Swift and Harry Styles is widely anticipated even without Easter eggs due to the artists' popularity. But the hints, theories, and guessing games that take place during these pre-release Easter egg hunts create even higher mounting excitement for the albums.

"Easter eggs certainly get people more excited for the album," Molly Dougherty ‘25 says. "It's also an amazing way to bring fans together as a community to figure out [the clues]."

The artist's fanbase interactions grow when there is something to be figured out. Harry Styles’s album has been a hot topic since the clues began to spread, and they’ve only been increasing since Styles released his leading single “As It Was” off of Harry's House. The song was met with great enthusiasm, and within hours, the stans were back to work, looking for clues within the lyrics and music video. Leading up to Taylor Swift's re-recordings, her fans are always speculating on social media, interacting with their fellow fans, and growing excited by the prospect of new music. Fans work together to decode artists' messages, often seemingly out of nothing, yet many of their predictions turn out to be correct.

"Overall, I feel artists implement Easter eggs because they know their influence in the lives of so many people," Dougherty says. "People can derive great happiness from decoding and looking forward to new music from their favorite stars."

Everything's A Clue To A Stan