What ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ Allegedly Tells Us About Swift’s Ex Jake Gyllenhaal

The release of “Red (Taylor’s Version)” along with the recent “All Too Well” short film directed by Taylor Swift have taken the internet by storm over the past few weeks. As one of the most well-known artists in the music industry for over a decade, Taylor Swift has amassed a wide and loyal fan base spanning generations from Gen X-ers to Gen Z-ers. Her re-release of the album Red included a 10-minute re-recording of the critically-acclaimed track “All Too Well,” which fans have long speculated is about Swift’s relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010 — a speculation Swift’s new music video has only fueled.

It’s no surprise, then, that social media timelines everywhere have been flooded with fans’ reactions to the 10-minute version of “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” which have included people’s mostly negative thoughts on the role they believe Jake Gyllenhaal played in the saga.

On Twitter, user @pxchxcxx wrote, “i am convinced Jake Gyllenhaal hired 21k people or made 21k accounts to dislike Taylor Swift’s All Too Well short film.” Another user, @thinkersersi said “jake gyllenhaal prepared for his role as manipulative villain “mysterio” in spiderman: far from home by gaslighting Taylor Swift in 2012.” The Jake Gyllenhaal negativity runs so deep that people use it as a benchmark for evaluating their significant others: User @CourtneyCaruso3 tweeted about“The feminine urge to force him to watch Taylor Swift’s short film and make him give me his full opinion about Jake Gyllenhaal.”

Fans have also gone to TikTok to express their reinvigorated dislike of the actor and Swift ex via short skits and reactions to meme compilations. User @marystoes on TikTok, for example, posted a video reacting to memes about the difficult time Jake Gyllenhaal’s publicist and his girlfriend must be having due to the song’s extended release. A sound asking people to “name a celebrity you hate” with the response “Jake Gyllenhaal” has similarly skyrocketed to fame, and has been used in over 12 thousand videos, as of this writing. Some of these videos have between 100 and 300,000 views.

Even TikTok’s brand accounts have gotten in on the action. The Sour Patch TikTok account, for example, commented on Taylor Swift’s Nov. 12 “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)” announcement, “WHERE IS JAKE. BRING HIM TO ME.”

Brands have been quick to adopt social media as a means of advertising by participating in pop culture in the past, but hating on Jake Gyllenhaal has taken it to a whole other level, with brands publicly, and humorously, denouncing the celebrity.

The Jake Gyllenhaal hate may seem like just another internet trend, but interspersed between the “point of view: you’re Jake Gyllenhaal’s publicist” TikToks and tweets about fans asking for Swift’s scarf back are glimpses of the hate to come for another one of Taylor Swift’s exes: John Mayer. Fans have speculated that Taylor Swift’s future re-releases will be songs and albums about him, like Speak Now, so he’ll likely face the same, if not more, internet backlash than what Jake Gyllenhaal is enduring.

Still, there has been some push back against the slander of Swift’s ex-boyfriends. Many have cited the incredibly damaging aspect of these comments on the celebrity’s mental health and the extremes fans will go to be “supportive” of their faves. One user on Twitter, @heavenslt, brought up the damage that comments like “I hope you die” can do to celebrities, who are real people and who can actually see those messages. “I can’t stand them harassing people anymore,” they wrote.

Vogue Magazine’s Emma Spector also brought up in an article the fact that focusing on Taylor Swift’s ex-boyfriends isn’t really the point of her music.

It’s hard to deny that the internet’s support of Taylor Swift is stronger than ever, and sometimes that support takes the form of hating on her exes, the speculated subjects of her music. While it seems like the particular past lover the internet picks to (metaphorically and socially) rip apart will change with each coming release, the broader wave of support for Swift that manifests as these anti-Jake Gyllenhaal comments doesn’t seem to be dying down soon.