Taylor Swift surprised fans with the release of her ninth studio album, Evermore, last night and as usual, broke the internet as fans began to react to her new string of hits. With almost every song on the new album trending on Twitter one seemed to stand above the rest when it came to fan theories of who the song is about, ‘Dorothea’.
In Taylor Swift’s ‘Dorothea’, she writes to an old friend that she is no longer close with, letting them know she only has ‘well wishes’ and wondering if she’s still the same person she knew growing up. Notably, the person is also famous with Swift singing about her ‘selling makeup and magazines’.
Why do people care so much about who Dorothea is? Given almost every other song on the album seems to be about the loves of her life (or perhaps fictional loves, we do know that Taylor’s quarantine song writing revolved around creating characters in her head and imagining their lives – or at least, I know that… unironic Swiftie an all.) you would think people would be more concerned with figuring out who of the men that have caused her heartbreak she’s wrote about this time around.
Side bar, I’m taking bets on ‘tolerate it’ being about Jake Gyllenhaal or John Mayer and ‘gold rush’ absolutely about Harry Styles. With gold rush lyrics like ‘Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you’, it can’t not be.
But back to Dorothea. Why the focus? Well, because it’s not just about a friendship loss, but a celebrity friendship loss – and if the public loves anything, it’s a feud between two women. Now, there is a YIKES element to the song, listening to it for the first time. Taylor builds Dorothea up as ‘a Queen selling dreams’ and notes her ‘shiny new friends’, only to sing ‘if you're ever tired of being known for who you know…You know, you'll always know me, Dorothea’.’
Now, is my internal misogyny showing or is that kind of a dig? With Taylor’s Reputation album, we know she lost a lot of people she thought were friends after the Kim Kardashian and Kayne West feud, perhaps Dorothea was one of them. The lyric ‘It’s never too late to come back to my side,’ could be read as so.
Ultimately, whether you heard an earnest plea for reconciliation or some slight passive aggression, the song is an absolute smash hit and of course, all anyone wants to know now is WHO IS DOROTHEA??
So, who is Taylor Swift's Dorothea about?
Well, fans have some theories. Since she’s obviously incredibly famous and grew up with Taylor, they think it’s Selena Gomez. This thread anyway seems to break down some clues…
Other clues include the lyrical reference to Dorothea’s mum’s ‘pageant schemes’, Selena grew up doing beauty pageants. But of course, Selena and Taylor met during the ‘Jonas Brothers dating the entire Disney Channel era’, when Selena had long stopped doing pageants.
But in actuality, fans don’t need to theorise about who Dorothea is, because Taylor already said on Twitter. And sorry to break it to you, but it’s not Selena Gomez. As with Folklore, Taylor created a range of fictional characters for Evermore, with Dorothea as ‘the girl who left her small town to chase down Hollywood dreams—and what happens when she comes back or the holidays and rediscovers an old flame.’
If you’ve listened to ‘tis the damn season’, you’ll note that that song is likely written from Dorothea’s perspective, while Dorothea’s from the flame she talks about reuniting with. Mystery solved!
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