Taylor Swift Invites China to Shake Off Massacre With Cute New Clothes
Your best friend Taylor Swift is going to China. At least, a line of officially licensed Tayla merchandise bearing her initials and birth year will be available in the country soon. Do you think the Chinese people will buy it?
Why wouldn’t they? Well, 1989 was the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when Chinese troops killed hundreds of pro-Democracy protesters who were gathered in the titular Beijing square. 1989, duh, is also the title of Swift’s newest album. And her initials, T.S., well—you get it. The Guardian notes that the Chinese government is so defensive about the date that it has blacklisted social media users from publishing any successive combination of 6, 4, and 89 online. (The massacre happened on June 4.)
Swift’s line of inadvertent protest-wear will include t-shirts, sweatshirts, and dresses, the Guardian reports, which will be available via the Chinese online retailers Alibaba and JD.com. A video posted to Weibo to promote the line shows several shirts emblazoned with “1989,” and 1989 the album is already available on JD.
It remains to be seen whether items like this official Tayla hoodie, which reads “T.S. 1989” without any additional text or information, will be made available in the country. Chinese Swifties looking for an extremely punk rock look might give it a try.