We need to talk about Joe Alwyn's photo dump
Notes on on the most important thirst trap of our time.
Yesterday was a very chaotic day for me as a woman who loves Taylor Swift. I don’t usually engage in “clowning,” but everyone makes mistakes.1 My entire fyp and I were convinced that Ms. Swift would drop the first single for Red (Taylor’s Version) at 4pm EST yesterday for reasons I will not get into, but she didn’t. However, something much more interesting happened, Swift’s ever mysterious boyfriend of five years, Joe Alwyn, posted a photo dump that contains perhaps the most impactful thirst trap of our time.
Not much is known about Alwyn or I have never cared to learn much about Alwyn, whose to say. All I know is he is a British actor who was in The Favorite, a movie I saw in theaters with my parents because the director is Greek. I have no recollection of him being in the movie, but according to IMBD he played “Masham,” which sounds like a fake character, but ok. He’s also going to be playing Nick in the Hulu adaptation of Conversations with Friends because as a couple Alwyn and Swift are obsessed with coming for my neck.
Swift’s reputation and Lover albums are famously about her relationship with Alwyn and are canonically her most romantic albums. Listening to reputation and Lover has always been a treat because you can hear her growth and you know the love songs aren’t written about some idiot who turns around and steals her Gucci scarf.2 However, I always thought she was being kind of dramatic about how hot Alwyn is, sure he’s conventionally attractive and British, but c’mon blondie, “everybody wants you / everybody wonders what it would be like to love you.” I personally did not want him nor wonder what it would be like to love him, despite Hunter Harris warning me over year ago about Alwyn.
I am not of the seeing Alwyn in real life experience, so it took Alwyn’s aforementioned Instagram post to confirm what Swift has been telling us for years, Alwyn is “so gorgeous it actually hurts.” The thirst trap in question was posted in a photo dump promoting Conversation with Friends. It’s a black and white film photo that shows off his chiseled chest where water is quite literally dripping off of him, textbook whore behavior. The photo is tastefully nestled between an artsy photo of him swimming in an unidentified European body of water and a painting (or really blurry photo) of clouds at dusk. It’s a chaotic, artsy, and successful photo dump which only makes the photo in question more appealing.
I am thankful for this awakening. It allowed me to listen to reputation, Lover, and selected tracks off of folklore and evermore with new ears. It gave me the opportunity to reanalyze songs through the Joe Alwyn is hot lens and for that I am grateful. Don’t mind me, I will be listening to a playlist I found on Spotify titled “taylor being in love with joe for 2hrs and 4min” until further notice. The order of the playlist makes absolutely zero sense, but I am lazy and will not be making my own.
Listening to the songs about Alwyn after being enlightened about his good looks, I couldn’t help, but feel euphoric. I, too, would’ve gone home and stalked him on the internet.
“Clowning” is when one believes fan theories.
For non-Swifies this is a dig at Jake Gyllenhaal who inspired the masterpiece “All Too Well.”