On Oct. 21, fans met global pop star Taylor Swift at midnight and totaled eighty-eight million streams in the U.S and 185 million streams worldwide in just twenty-four hours.

      The album, Midnights, was originally announced at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards in August. “I was super excited, and I couldn’t wait for [the album] to come out,” said sophomore Hannah Arnold. Arnold was made aware of the album’s release through the music awards, since she was watching the awards play out.

      The record is described as a pop, indie/alternative album. Some fans were not expecting this. “I thought Midnights was going to be more like folklore and evermore,” Arnold said. “I am very happy with the album though, my favorite songs are ‘Sweet Nothing,’ ‘’Mastermind,’ and ‘Karma,’ the fan added.

      So far, the Midnights era has consisted of navy blue, sparkling aesthetics, and late nights for fans.

      When the album was released, Swift announced a “chaotic surprise” to be determined at 3 a.m. on Oct. 21, only three hours after the initial release of the album.

      This sent fans into a craze, anxious and excited to find out what it was that Swift had planned. Swift is known to throw chaotic curveballs and easter eggs at her fans all the time, so fans felt that if Swift herself was calling it chaotic, they were in for utter chaos.

      The surprise turned out to be a deluxe version of Midnights, named Midnights (3am Version).

      Sophomore Poppy Smith shared that she woke up to the surprise and “was extremely happy” and called the surprise drop with eight new songs an “amazing surprise.”

      Swift also announced via Instagram a grand return to performing live since her Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018. The artist currently has only announced shows available for American fans, with fifty-two concerts to offer. 

     However, there has been what’s been deemed as a “pre-sale meltdown” abroad the fanbase due to the company Ticketmaster.

      Ticketmaster, the leading ticketing technological company in the world, allowed a presale to so-called “verified fans.” This presale was supposed to allow a smoother experience for buying tickets, but ended up not being the case.

      Ticketmaster released a statement explaining the complications during their presale and blamed the unexpected demand and people who attempted purchasing tickets without Verified Fan access codes.

      The company had fans pre-register so they could essentially “manage high demand shows—identifying real humans and weeding out bots. Keeping bots out of queues and avoiding overcrowding helps to make waits shorter and on sales smoother,” according to the company’s statement.

      This did not go as planned, however,  and the site repeatedly kept crashing due to the mass number of fans who either received or did not receive the presale code. Because of the mistakes of Ticketmaster, many fans did not get pre-sale tickets, resulting in the latest controversy circulating the company.

      Ticketmaster also tweeted a cancellation of the general sale of The Eras Tour  with no clear indication of tickets ever going on sale again as of Nov. 18.