Amid her expedition to circumnavigate the Earth and map its borders in puff paint, Sailor Twift occasionally finds the downtime to pursue other arts and crafts—most of these combining quaint, old-world customs, as practiced by her frontiersman forebears, and hip-hop quotes, as seen all over Etsy. And because she doesn’t have any nephews old enough to disappoint at Christmas yet, most of these are then gifted to friend and tourmate Ed Sheeran, who no doubt already has a closet filled with posterboard collages covered in magazine cutouts and glitter. (“No, don’t open that,” Sheeran will say, too late, to visitors, as an avalanche of ransom-lettered “BFF”s tumble out.)
What Sheeran definitely has is some homemade jam Taylor Swift made by putting her feelings about Kanye West in a jar, then preserving them in fermenting rage and pectin. And according to the upcoming MTV documentary 9 Days And Nights Of Ed Sheeran (Only 9?), he also has a Drake-themed needlepoint she made. It shows the two of them climbing some stairs over a Drake quote, “Started From The Bottom Now We Here,” which Taylor has properly attributed to “-Drake.” (She’s not trying to take credit. Taylor’s not like that.)
Swift also winks and reflexively blows a kiss at the many layers of dubiousness at play here—a scene characterizing the rise of two young pop stars from wealthy families, using the lyrics of a Canadian TV star turned insta-famous rapper—by incorporating the ironic “The Struggle Is Real” meme (sometimes used as a substitute for “First World Problems”). In their own tongue-in-cheek “struggle,” Swift and Sheeran can only get about halfway up the stairs of stardom before they have to stop and talk and sing about “LEGOS” and “CATS.” Indeed, that struggle continues. As does the struggle to space out your embroidery, so some of the letters aren’t all weirdly big.
According to the documentary, Sheeran hung Swift’s needlepoint in a place of pride in his home—presumably to make up for the Wu-Tang Clan cornhusk dolls he “lost.” You didn’t lose those, Ed. Just be honest.