There are very few artists who can make everyone from X and Target to RuPaul’s Drag Race drop what they’re doing and rush out a response to an album announcement. Actually, only one, honestly.
So there we were on Tuesday (Aug. 12), watching brands including the Olive Garden, FedEx, YouTube, Elmo, McDonald’s United Airlines, the City of Las Vegas, Lasik and Duolingo Brasil all reacting to Taylor Swift‘s announcement of her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl by scrambling to get up pumpkin-hued memes to react to the color scheme for the singer’s upcoming era.
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The news was so breathlessly received that even seemingly polar opposite entities such as X and RuPaul’s Drag Race just had to weigh in, with Elon Musk’s social media platform writing “New Profile Pic” along with its X logo remade in bedazzled orange, while RuPaul’s show high-kicked into the showgirl of it all with a clip of a contestant Bosco doing a fan dance.
National chains couldn’t resist either, as United Airlines tweeted, “Okay, finally calmed down enough to post something,” along with a jet taking off through flaked pumpkin skies and Shake Shack wrote, “Felt appropriate today” along with a shot of an orange drink. Buffalo Wild Wings teased “something hot coming 8.20.25” over a snap of a golden wing sitting atop their newly gingered logo and FedEx joked, “don’t mind us we’re just tidying up here #NewProfilePic” over, of course, their logo on top of the Showgirl color scheme.
Walmart wrote “a girl can dream [orange heart emoji] along with an image of an orange display titled “fingers crossed for 8/13” and the sign above reading “next era,” with cheekily named Swift-coded aisles 1989, 13, 22 and 87 in the background. While they didn’t directly name Swift, Cinnabon posted a tangerine frosted sticky bun with the message, “from now on when i send content to my boss im sending this and it will unlock when they give me a compliment.”
Google celebrated with a search result that brought on a rain of orange confetti and snippets of Swift lyrics, Olive Garden quipped that “she’s giving carbs, couture, and confetti. Consider this our official album cover prediction,” over a PhotoShopped snap of a breadstick wearing a showgirl outfit — with Fedex commenting “she’d look even better in purple and orange boots” — and Crumbl cookies promised, “see you next era” along with an orange flake square with the message “The Life of a Crumbl Girl” also in the Taylor next era hue.
Though he’s usually obsessed with counting licks, Tootsie Pops mascot Mr. Owl wondered, “Anyone else craving Orange today?” over a pic of a package or orange lollipops, while the Minions movie franchise posted “the life of a showgirl” along with a screengrab of one of the jabbering animated character sporting a Carmen Miranda-like showgirl fruit hat. Even Sesame Street‘s Elmo couldn’t resist, with an adorable post of the Muppet wearing headphones with a google-eyed number 12 above his head on an orange background and the message, “Elmo is ready for it! Are you? [orange heart emoji].”
Given Taylor’s NFL ties via Kansas City Chiefs boyfriend Travis Kelce, it wasn’t a surprise that some sports franchises took a dip into the TS 12 publicity pool as well. The Cleveland Browns posted a take on the album art teaser via an LP sleeve with their orange helmet logo — newly flaked in Swift’s honor — and the Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team wrote “to those who celebrate” above side-by-side snaps of Swift in a swirl of orange next to similarly hued driver Kyle Larson.
And you know Kansas City showed up, with Union Station KC celebrating KC Swifties through Sunday with a new TS12 photo op at its Grand Hall featuring a giant light-up TS12 logo surrounded by orange balloons. San Antonio also got in on the action, writing “new era, same river” above a PhotoShopped image of a river cruise on the orange-tinted San Antonio River.
There are so many more it’s hard to count, though some were collected by fans who cataloged homages from Threads, McDonald’s, Cincinnati’s Skyline Chili, the Las Vegas tourism bureau, Netflix, Lasik, Duolingo Brasil, the Pittsburgh Penguins and many more.
At press time no additional information was available about the singer’s follow-up to 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, though it’s expected she’ll reveal more when she appears on the Kelce brother’s New Heights podcast on Wednesday (Aug. 13).
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