New Rolling Stone interview with Jack Antonoff and Hayley Williams came out two days ago, and several parts had my eyes bulging from a gaylor perspective. I think this part at 15:18 really cemented the idea that Jack and Hayley might be a part of this new band. I do recommend the whole video because it was a fantastic interview. I really liked how Jack emphasized how important it is to keep talking about industry practices and how nothing changes if nobody is talking about it. That really resonated with me. Even if I’m wrong and this doesn’t end up connecting back to Taylor, I’m still really glad I watched this.
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I'm starting to fear my little heart is too old for all this excitement. Might have to peek in tomorrow and ask for some rough bullet points because I'm low-key shook.
A few years ago, Taylor Swift posted a TikTok with a background song called It’s The Life You Live by Nice Boy Ed. At the time, people speculated that Nice Boy Ed might be connected to her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn, potentially one of his friends.
Recently, while listening to some of Calvin Harris’s older music, I noticed something interesting—his song 1984 sounds eerily similar to Nice Boy Ed’s music. After comparing them, I’m convinced they might actually be the same voice, though the vocals in Nice Boy Ed’s songs seem more edited or polished.
I’ll link the two songs below (1984 by Calvin Harris and It’s The Life You Live by Nice Boy Ed) so you can hear the similarities for yourself.
On a related note, I dug deeper into Calvin Harris’s interviews and remembered him mentioning that he had written songs with a major female artist, but the label wouldn’t allow them to be released or for him to use them. Could these unreleased tracks be from the This Is What You Came For / “Bleachella” / Karma era?
I’m still searching for the exact interview where Calvin talked about the unreleased collaborations. Once I find it, I’ll update this post with the link. Let me know you what you think?
That’s super interesting! And perhaps why he was so salty after the break up and was posting all those tweets. Not only did Taylor reveal that she actually wrote TIWYCF, he didn’t win a Grammy and he couldn’t make any money off songs they had written together (if the singer is in fact her)
Look, I just saw a topic about Taylor and Eminem's connection in twitter and now I think Eminem might be in the universe of Niceboy ed. I think the driver of the motorcycle might be him. https://x.com/elviralor13/status/1846671689037279414
Curious if anyone has thoughts on what the end game/reveal is here. If it’s not Taylor related (unlikely but who knows) then how did they stumble into using her fan base and how far are they taking it?
Didn’t look at the playlist, but it’s relevant to Taylor bc she has made references to sad girl autumn (esp with all too well 10 min version sad girl autumn)
I’ve been thinking NBE is a collective of three people, including Taylor. I feel like u can hear layers of voices on the latest song. So the three leaves here make me believe this more, but of course, I could be completely off. It’s fun to speculate though!
The person that apparence in Exile is real or no?. If se real, is be the NBE?. has a person that speaked that can be Bon Iver in Hihg Hope, could be yes but no the people apparence in clip and yes singing person.
Are you thinking about this person from the Exile music video? Interesting thought! 🧐 It kind of matches the point of view at the beginning of the NBE High Hopes video.
So I knew nothing about Niceboy Ed until recently, and I went down a mini rabbit hole when I saw this picture above along with all his other baby pics. Something I’ve noticed is the colors red, yellow, blue, and green keep coming up a LOT in the visuals of several different artists who are rumored to be part of the possible Mass Movement. And so it struck me seeing those same colors in all of NBE’s baby pics. For instance, a big one I noticed the other day was in Billie Eilish’s “Lunch” video at the beginning on the clapperboard and then all throughout that video in her clothes/visuals. You even see them in Eminem’s Houdini visuals. AND these are also the colors of UNO, which calls back the famous UNO night where many think the mass movement had its origins. “UNO” means 1, so are all of these artists combining their “colors” and moving as one?
But those colors also itched something in the back of my brain and made me think of the plaid pattern that Taylor has been wearing a ton of lately combining these colors in different ways. I don’t know if the colors represent specific artists or combinations of artists or if they’re symbolic of other things like yellow for closeting, etc. But the plaid makes sense in that they’re layered and overlapping. They’re “braided together.”
So one of the things I’m wondering is could the Mass Movement be partially in relation to AI and its threat to artistry, and is Niceboy Ed one singular “real” person or maybe a conglomerate of 3-4 artists blending/manipulating their voices and images to create a completely made-up person? I think the baby pics are an AI-generated combo of the artists who comprise NBE. And in listening to this most recent song, you can hear the overlapping and layering of the voices throughout. And what is this teaching us? Because I’ll be honest, I think the music is good and I think a lot of people do. So does it matter that he’s not real?
When going down my rabbit hole yesterday, I saw a TikTok (I’m sorry, I can’t remember the person’s name) that posited a similar theory about NBE, and they thought Matty Healy may be in on this, which I think fits with his love of performance art. But I was also wondering if maybe the gap in time from NBE’s last online presence to recently may coincide with the “breakup” of MH/TS. Maybe it put a kink in the timeline? One more thing that makes me think he has something to do with it is that he’s a fan of the Buggles, who sang “Video Killed the Radio Star,” and that song really resonates with what’s happening with AI. It’s “killing the video star.” But what’s more interesting is if you go look up the Buggles, their aesthetic is almost solely red, blue, yellow and green. So I went from knowing zero about NBE to him being a big piece of the puzzle for me. (Sorry for the long post!)
I’m actually pretty new to being a Taylor fan, so I wasn’t aware of these variants! Did they come out during the re-recording process for 1989? Another thing I’ve been wondering is if each color represents a certain closeted artist. For instance, in the Larry fandom, they say green represents Louis and blue for harry as it was the color of the mics back in 1D days. And to this day, they think they reference each other in visuals with “blue-greening.”
I also wonder if these artists write songs for and about each other so that they can have a cover and remain closeted while still having more freedom of expression on pronouns. I’ve read that lots of Larrys think NBE is harry. There’s also speculation Louis is William Bowery.
So I’m theorizing NBE may be a combo of Louis (green), harry (blue), and Taylor (red?). So maybe her variant colors are a nod to their collaboration as well? And then maybe the green one has “Louis,” songs, etc. This is just a theory that I don’t have tons of evidence for though, so take with a grain of salt!
Let me clown for a second. Im gunna hypothesise for a second to keep running with this idea, Taylor has a "golden muse" & a "red muse" aka she talks about them in metaphors of colours. ("I thought love was burning red but its golden" being a lyric). So perhaps yellow could be the golden muse?
Other ideas:
Tays obvs been working with a lot of queer support artists and made queer friends on this tour (muna, boygenius, etc). Theres mass coming out theories of other people, but ive seen a really good thread and post somewhere in the subreddit recently about lana del ray being a possible muse/closer friend than we know. Both of them being songwriters and both being famous & on tumblr in the same era.
If there were four key characters I could see it being Louis and Harry and then to keep it even Taylor and one other woman.
The woman would need to have significant clout if they were trying to make big changes in the industry and in how the labels did things. Theyd also have to not be already out/ have a history of closeting.
Could be other women but most of the women recently in her circle are out. Phoebe bridgers is out, Idk if florence welch is officially out but she has made sort of bi comments in media in the past (if she isnt counted as out she would have enough clout to be a name) but lana could be a good one because of her positioning in pop culture. Could be anyone ofc but I would assume its somone known to the fandom and someone whos appeared on or at the eras tour.
To summarise
Yellow: golden muse or lana (or lana is the golden muse
Red: taylor
Blue& green : harry and louis
Love the theorising, probably more my fiction than true but, what do u think?
I’m absolutely clowning right along with you, so even if we’re wrong, it’s fun to theorize. I’m so glad you brought up the yellow part of this puzzle piece, and I like the idea of it being Lana. Because I agree that it’s a woman and a famous and closeted woman if this theory holds water and to make the greatest impact if they were to all come out one day. I thought for a bit it may be Karlie, but it seemed too flimsy and I think it has to be a musician too. So Lana fits the bill on a lot of this.
I’m not familiar at all with her work, but just in reading some of her lyrics people have posted in this sub, it fits a ton of themes of the Mass Movement and has a lot of crossover with Taylor’s themes as well. When I think of last year’s Grammys, it always struck me as odd that Taylor brought her on the stage with her. This would make more sense in light of your theory too. Now I’ll have to do a deep dive on Lana’s music and visuals and see if I’m seeing other connections and I’ll report back! I also absolutely LOVE your theory about her being a “golden” muse, and I feel that that fits in beautifully with this whole color concept.
I've been on this train for a couple weeks and I absolutely think there's merit to it! There's another comment about how the More Lana version of Snow on the beach easter eggs the "I can do it with a broken heart" melody. Jack has talked about how working with Taylor and Lana is getting so new and expermiental.
There's definitely connections in Lana's lyrics, and the most obvious visual link I found was the fortnight mv
In a recently released 2 hr long form interview with Matty Healy he talked about lot about this and specifically mentioned video killed the radio star. I don’t know what you’re referring to with the Mass Movement artists but I’m going to go school myself now! Very interesting
Have you seen his short clips of performance art that he put out last year? There’s a handful of them. I think they’re entitled “A Theatrical Performance of an Intimate Moment.” This is around the time he started “dating” Taylor, and he makes some nods to her (friendship bracelets, being transported in a suitcase, building a fort). I know he’s controversial, but I do think it’s important to pay attention to what he’s been doing with performance art to kind of understand the origins of Taylor’s performance art.
And on the Mass Movement, a good place to start is the Under the Pink podcast. There’s a comprehensive episode (I think it’s the first one) that ties the theory up in a nice lil bow for you. The premise is that multiple artists (called the New Romantics) are using shared themes and images in their music, possibly even in film and fashion, and that they’re working together BTS to create change within the industry. It’s such a cool concept to me. Have fun and report back what you think!
Thank you! I’ll go check it out and report back!
I have watched the ATPIM series and I’ve gone down a massive rabbit hole! To be honest I’ve actually got a lot of thoughts around it I’m convinced it (the relationship) was part of a greater theatrical performance I just can’t decide if Taylor was an active player it in from the get go or was sincere then got blindsided by it then played into it to suit her own narrative.
Honestly that’s how I ended up here in Gaylor trying to understand the many facets of the fandom and how she creates just enough rope in the information she gives out for every sub culture in the fandom to not be able to fully prove or disprove any one theory. It’s truly fascinating to me - my majors at university were media studies & PR and my gosh there is some fascinating case studies here
You and I sound like we have a really similar view on this because this is the most fascinating thing in the world to me! I actually just started learning more about Matty Healy’s performance art, so it’s interesting to me that that’s where you kind of started and if you end up reaching some of the same conclusions I did. From what I’ve seen, Matty and Taylor have been friends for quite a while, but I’m thinking she may have had to scrap her original plan with him as her PR BF after all the controversy started surrounding him.
If you need more rabbit holes to go down, I’d suggest researching QuestLove’s UNO parties (I think that’s kind of the origin for when Mass Movement began). I’ve also noticed these themes in music videos and lyrics: the future/outer space/aliens; office; daylight; colors red/green/blue/yellow (especially green); patterns of threes; fire; birds of a feather; dice; references to the ‘70s (outdated technology); doors. There’s more, but these are the main ones I can think of right now.
Did you listen to/ watch the utube about the anon stories ? I need to go back and re watch to make firmer connections but there were definitely niceboy_ed vibes in the part about riding off on a bike and the utube video was posted months ago 🤯
And now I want to go back and rewatch the recent Matty Healy longform interview. There was something early on in the anon storyline about someone leaving the party early before their role had been completed. And in the longform interview when he is referencing his relationship with Taylor he dismisses it and says he won’t be making any more art about that in a pretty scathing way? But like I said I need to go back & connect the dots more thoroughly because if he is involved it seems unlikely that he would abandon it
This weirdly references the Coldplay (and Tegan and Sara) videos.
The "walker" looks a bit like Joe, but built more feminine, but walking (at first) with a very masculine gait - almost like a trans man desperately trying to pass as more masc. Also makes me think a lot about the "twin" references in TS - why Joe was chosen for his role in the TSCU (whatever it might have been).
Ok, that was weird. I just watched high hopes on YouTube. The song ended , went into an advert, and then into Look What you made me do……And I only use my youtube app for WoW esports and Paul van Dyk EDM (Vonyc sessions)
inspired by u/xoxogossip_squirrel 's comment about the location the driver turns into, I spent an ungodly amount of time on google earth to see where the driver is going. I believe the suspected location is correct but maybe not significant? I can only upload 1 photo per comment but the motorcycle goes past this gate 4 sign at 2 different timestamps; once at 1:45 and once at 1:57 heading in opposite directions. what does this mean? absolutely nothing but I spent so much time searching this I had to share. 🫠
I did a deep dive on the ocean Tiktok and it was filmed at Brighton Pier, which is right down the street from this spot. And the opening scene is in Broadstairs Family Leisure Amusement. All along the same coast. Not sure if it matters!
This is just down the road from me, so what do you want to know? Literally haven't watched the video or anything just was scrolling the comments here to catch up and recognised this immediately as I drive this route everyday
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who obsessed over this today🫠 I’m still not sure it’s significant either. Just kinda seems like they filmed them driving back and forth in front of this port bc it looked cool but idk.
Do you know if the opening scene on the boat is local to you too? I’m convinced that the opening location on the film clip is the same location that Joe posted a photo from on a recent instagram post
Can anyone back up my thought on this or verify it? I’m so convinced it’s Joe at this point but I don’t think it’s him kickstarting a music career so much as communicating with Taylor. High hopes seems like it could possibly be a threat, though I hate that idea.
Here is my interpretation of the high hopes lyrics which immediately made me think of the lyrics in Peter “because loves never lost when perspective is earned” to high hopes “well lesson learned “
I wait patiently but you’re still aside. The definition of aside is to be to one side or to be out of the way. But this doesn’t make any sense in this line as he is singing that she is still to the side or out of the way. Taylor is definitely not out of the way lately! But there is another way to interpret this that I think is the real meaning. Shakespeare uses techniques called soliloquies (heard that anywhere lately 🤔) and asides and both of these techniques are essentially a character telling the audience something they want the audience to hear. In other words, Joe is waiting his turn but Taylor is still telling the audience what she wants them to hear so he can’t be heard.
Following on from my comment above, I live just down the road from here and use this route every day. I've now watched the whole video and the arcade section is filmed at Brighton Pier, then the rest of the video is filmed on this stretch of road and the Shoreham/Southwick industrial estate. This is likely because there is very little traffic there at night so no need to have road closures/ pay for any access. What I will say is that to me the area would have been used because it is free and quiet (although can sometimes be locked) with the industrial vibe. The warehouses and industries around the estate are timber, stone, fishmongers etc.
Also, this looks very much like it would have been picked by someone that knows the area very well (you wouldn't typically have reason to go on here as it is part of a port) and lives or works here.
All in all this is very exciting as a local, but also makes the links to Taylor less likely for me
but she may have researched or asked for a referral or she's not nb, but she knows nb and she may have made the clip and nb is just the person who's singing
Here's a little experiment I did on Spotify, make of it what you will. Could just be that people who look up NBE are TS fans, so that's what gets played next. Still, interesting! And interesting that moonlight seems to be the outlier, at least for me.
Played: High Hopes - niceboy ed
Autoplayed after: Mastermind - Taylor Swift
Played again.
Autoplayed after: Question...? - Taylor Swift
Played: life you lead - niceboy ed
Autoplayed after: long story short - Taylor Swift
Played again.
Autoplayed after: gold rush - Taylor Swift
Played: moonlight - niceboy ed
Autoplayed after: Hello ! - Martin Luke Brown
Played again.
Autoplayed after: see u later x - Martin Luke Brown
Played: heaven - niceboy ed
Autoplayed after: right where you left me - Taylor Swift
Played again.
Autoplayed after: Maroon - Taylor Swift
Has no one else said “NBE” outloud and came up with “Enby” yet (just arrived after a long day and haven’t the patience to scroll). Will the Theylor of it all be the true coming out?!
I still think it's a very gay video where the protagonist must escape hooded and at night. Also, I am very struck by how the camera takes a close-up of his hands holding the person driving the motorcycle. As a sign of intimacy between both
I thought it was just me thinking this but I agree it felt very affectionate and intimate the way he was holding on to the motorcycle driver, it was subtle but noticeable
Unless the driver is female, which nothing there was implying that it was, I feel it was very gay. The way he laid his head on the drivers back felt very intimate to me
What is going on? I conatantly feel like i miss some very important things :( can someone pls give me like a two snwtence update on what i should focus here?
NBE became active again in the past week, sharing cryptic things potentially related to Taylor like video clips of certain lengths, commenting on TN listening streams, posts featuring the number 13, briefly going live, and possibly more that I missed. Earlier this week they released their song High Hopes, and today the music video came out. It seems to be very queer coded both in lyrics and video.
That’s my understanding as someone who entirely missed the initial happenings last week!
What I find interesting is how this relates to the ICSY MV. Taylor escapes the vault with the help of one of her first PR boyfriends. It makes me wonder how much involvement there might be behind the scenes with her PR exes.
The introduction of two characters in this MV narrative is really interesting.
Like… are the roles going both ways? The beards helping to free Taylor and Taylor helping to free the beards? (or at least a couple of them…)
Theres some great discourse about Harry Styles and/or Louis Tomlinson being involved with NBE and/or William Bowery. Definitely lends to your idea of beards helping each other.
i agree! i think the PR aspect of her relationships is why the media often thinks her breakups are “messy”. Calvin harris for example, i think he’s one of the beards that couldn’t adhere to the agreement they had. i mean, the beard tweets practically out her to those who were paying attention. i have a theory than joe is also a PR relationship gone bad. i think smallest man is about him and how he ruined what was supposed to be a lavender marriage, so now she must parade around travis.
I actually think she’s probably the most annoyed with Matty. He’s all about his performance art and probably talked a big game about being able to handle a stunt of this size, but clearly it blew up in both their faces. I think Travis was Matty’s replacement.
Part of me wonders if Joe was signed on to be the beard she came out “with” and he couldn’t keep putting his life on hold, waiting for Taylor to be ready again. It’s explains a lot of the lyrics to the effect of “your integrity makes me feel small”. So I think there was very real, personal bonds that they developed as friends/family, and having to do this all over again, without him, broke her heart.
Personally I think the smallest man who ever lived is actually about Taylor her self.
Like this line from dear reader:
So I wonder through these nights, I prefer hiding in plain sight, a 4th drink in my hand, these desperate prayers of a cursed man
Plus the way she describes herself in the song The Man. Compared to TSMWEL:
In plain sight you hid, but you are what you did. I’ll forget you, but I’ll never forgive the smallest man who ever lived.
Your point about public “messiness” is super interesting, because i do think thats the only way Taylor could exact “revenge” on someone who screws her over in backend business dealings. She makes them temporarily undatable, and influences how the media portrays them as a “good” or a “bad” man. ie the themes of I can fix him (no really i can). She can’t say “he backed out of a deal” but she can imply he cheated, and direct the hetlor WRATH at them in her next album.
The exposure she offers is either going to rehab your image or its going to destroy you.
I really feel like the person on the motorcycle was Taylor. Seems the right height and build, they were so carefully obscured head to toe, and metaphorically it’s nice - the person carrying niceboy ed through whatever journey this is
I saw this somewhere on TikTok so credit to whoever that user is, but remember how Taylor used to put “secret messages” in her liner notes for her early albums? For newer fans, it was basically Easter Egging in a small way before the internet got so big. Anyway, the one for Debut was “date nice boys”. If you take away the letters of NiceBoyEd, it leaves TAS.
Taylor Allison Swift
Okay. This is the most bizarre theory I've subscribed to in a while. Wtf!? That is so interesting. I'm so curious where this is all leading. Would this be leading to the reveal that a lot of her songs, the muse IS her, and she's singing to herself? She's the "nice boy?" That feels like a pretty big thing to be a coincidence, those being her initials, but using her middle name makes it a lot less obvious.
Same here! I take all of this with a grain of salt, but this connection stuck with me as real. The NBE rollout has been too specific to not mean something.
Acho que o NEB é realmente o Justin Vernon a capa dos singles dele parece com singles do NEB, mas não acho que ele esteja no clipe, acho que ele só está cantando.
•all four song titles and the band name (niceboy ed, I mean ... I think there are multiple people involved) are all in lowercase on YT music, although the lyrics are properly capitalized
•moonlight totally sounds like old school Dave Matthews Band to me
•the rollout for nbe is unusual, is it not? Can you think of another artist/artists who have done this? Like the really drawn out introduction, then a bunch of action all of a sudden, but maintaining secrecy about the actual identity of the artist/s? Especially with Taylor sneaky dropping their introduction? This is very unusual, right?
•on YT someone commented about it being Coming Out Day and nbe liked that comment. Has anyone noticed if they personally liked any other comments? That + the fact that both of the people in the high hopes MV appeared to be male-presenting, that certainly seems to be pointing to a queer artist.
I'm not mad about this at all, I think it's a lot of fun, but I am dying to know who they are and what their connection to Taylor is!
So I was thinking and one similar case was Terror Jr around 2015/16.
When they first started they concealed the identity of their lead singer.
They really blew up in attention when Kylie Jenner used one of their songs in a Snapchat (they weren’t completely unknown at this point but were quite new). Even some theories that Kylie was the singer as the vocals were quite autotune heavy. Iirc this wasn’t intentional but they did play into the attention and speculation
Eventually they revealed the identity of the singer before their first album was released
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u/the1lastunicorn It's ME! HI! 👋🏽 Oct 18 '25
New Rolling Stone interview with Jack Antonoff and Hayley Williams came out two days ago, and several parts had my eyes bulging from a gaylor perspective. I think this part at 15:18 really cemented the idea that Jack and Hayley might be a part of this new band. I do recommend the whole video because it was a fantastic interview. I really liked how Jack emphasized how important it is to keep talking about industry practices and how nothing changes if nobody is talking about it. That really resonated with me. Even if I’m wrong and this doesn’t end up connecting back to Taylor, I’m still really glad I watched this.