Peace In Our Time: Taylor Swift and Katy Perry Hold the Beef for "You Need to Calm Down" Video

The conflict of our generation reaches a détente.

Can you even remember a time before Taylor Swift and Katy Perry’s feud? Did we even have penicillin back then? Had the automobile been invented? Was democracy a thing?

Swift and Perry’s beef over some (alleged) stolen backup dancers has lingered over multiple album cycles, catching everyone from Nicki Minaj to Drake to, uhh, Gaten Matarazzo in its crossfires. But the two have finally called a ceasefire, made official by a friendly hug in Swift’s new music video.

In the clip for Swift’s "You Need to Calm Down", Perry dons her Met Gala hamburger suit to embrace Swift, herself dressed as a packet of French fries. Witness it yourself.

“You Need to Calm Down” finally buries the duo’s rivalry after years of tentative negotiations. Of course, following Swift’s disastrously bad flop "ME!" and the release of Perry’s “Never Really Over” (which bangs, despite the opinion of certain other Student Edge writers), a press-friendly reconciliation just makes good business sense, especially considering the mutual-self owns of their last barbed attacks. You may recall Swift rebranded herself as a Disney villain in 2017’s "Look What You Made Me Do", while Perry simultaneously dropped the embarrassing "Swish Swish", in which she suggested Swift was "an old coupon, expired". There were no survivors.

Sure, there were gems from their 2017 releases (for Perry, it was the well-meaning resistance anthem "Chained to the Rhythm"; for Swift, it was her Frankensteined-together dom-sub rap ballad "…Ready For It?"). But for the most part, everyone was basically ready for them to get over it.

And get over it they have! "You Need to Calm Down", also co-starring numerous queer icons such as Ellen DeGeneres, Jonathan Van Ness and Billy Porter, calls for less sniping and more signing of petitions, as part of Swift efforts to become an ally and support the Equality Act in America.

However, the clip also shows DeGeneres getting a "Cruel Summer" tattoo, referencing the album of Swift’s ultimate big bad, Kanye West, while the song refers to "snakes and stones", a not-so-veiled reference to Kim Kardashian. Is that beef gonna get squashed in the next single, or, did Swift mean it when she once sang that she keeps vendettas "forever"?

A weary world waits for these two remaining trigger-happy nations to sign a treaty not unlike the Katy Perry Agreement of 2019. Kum ba yah, Kanye!

Header Image: YouTube (TaylorSwiftVEVO)