Elmo ‘beefing’ with Taylor Swift over ‘Opalite’ music video baffles X/Twitter users | indy100

Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Netflix and Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Pop icon Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl era continued on Friday (6 February), when she released the music video for album single 'Opalite' on Apple Music and Spotify (it’ll land on YouTube on Sunday).

In addition to the video featuring a Graham Norton Show-based easter egg involving the likes of Lewis Capaldi, Cillian Murphy and Domhnall Gleeson, it also included Swift having a close friendship with a rock, which hasn’t left beloved Sesame Street character Elmo all that pleased.

Taking to social media following the video’s release, Elmo wrote: “Ms. Taylor Swift… you have got to be kidding Elmo.”

And for those not familiar with some key Elmo lore, the tweet saw them brand the situation “vagueposting”:

One Swiftie asked: “What did she do?”

And another fan account warning the children’s character to “be careful”:

The necessary context is that Elmo has long had a grudge against a pet rock called Rocco, belonging to fellow Sesame Street character Zoe:

One user wondered when Elmo and Rocco would form a friendship like Swift’s:

Another sided with the puppet and said Rocco featuring “before Elmo just feels wrong”:

But one commenter pointed out that with the video ending with Swift ditching the rock to form a new friendship with Gleeson’s character, “the whole video is a rocco diss track”:

It's not the first time that Elmo has caused a social media stir, what with him receiving a barrage of responses when he asked how everyone on the internet was doing in 2024, and his X/Twitter account being taken over by hackers in July last year.

Why not read…?

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.