It’s Me, Hi, I’m the Problem

IN “THE FATE OF OPHELIA,” the first track on her new album The Life of a Showgirl, Taylor Swift tells the story of a “pyro” who stops the singer from “drown[ing] in the melancholy,” saving her “heart from the fate of Ophelia.” It’s a catchy track, with hypnotic synth rhythms that are perfectly suited to platforms like Instagram. Unsurprisingly, it quickly spread across the internet after its release in early October. In fact, within a week, the album itself had more than 3.5 million listeners, breaking Adele’s 2015 record for first-week sales and streams. That is an extraordinary number of people listening to a song that features a Shakespearean character so prominently.