Why Is Taylor Swift Counting Down to 2 p.m. EST on Her Website?

The countdown is on for Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, literally.

On the “For a Fortnight” page of Swift’s official website, a countdown clock has been added in the center. In a typewriter font, the time ticks down until Thursday, April 18, at 2 p.m. EST. The page background also features “ttpd” in both capital and lowercase letters, “13”  — Swift’s lucky number — and “ttpd13,” in fonts that match the global QR codes plastered on murals worldwide. (“Fortnight” is also the name of a TTPD song, a duet with Post Malone.)

On Thursday, the website added a preorder link for a CD of lead single “Fortnight” and the introduction of a themed social media challenge.

Swift, 34, drops her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, the following day. To tease the release, she’s been debuting several Easter eggs via Apple Music liners of her songs, physical props displayed at a Los Angeles pop-up library and on billboards.

Swifties in Chicago discovered on Monday, April 15, that a QR code was being painted on the side of a local building, comprised of tiny “ttpd” logos. Other QR codes have since popped up in Los Angeles, Nashville and more, which directed fans to a website link that says “Error 321.” (The same code was shown on Swift’s website in January, the day that she announced TTPD was on the way.)

The timer ending at 2 p.m. is another Easter egg, which Swift started hinting at during the 2024 Grammys. During the awards show, the pop star made a “two” with her fingers when she delivered her acceptance speech for Album of the Year. The digit has since been spotted multiple times at the L.A. pop-up earlier this week and in the QR code’s error message.

A social media video Swift posted on Tuesday, April 16 — confirming the LP’s “timetable” — also features a clock set at 2:00, which was the same hour that a clock was set to in the “Anti-Hero” music video and on the exile countdown in the “Bejeweled” video.

The Tuesday video also featured two desks and two typewriters, leading fans to speculate that Swift won’t just drop one album but two in one day.

“Y’all think this is a double album theory? Like she’ll drop a deluxe version a few hours later?” one social media user wrote via X.

Another, however, pointed out that it could be a different type of project to avoid two records competing on the charts.

“Maybe the two’s weren’t hinting at a double album drop, what if they were hinting at a new album and Taylor releasing a book????” the X user wrote.

The L.A pop-up transformed a section of the Grove mall into a miniature library, with multiple books — whose covers bore the names of several TTPD songs — that led fans to believe that Swift secretly penned a novel.

The Tortured Poets Department comes out on Friday, April 19, along with one single’s music video.