UPDATED UPDATE: On Tuesday AM, Taylor Swift posted another mysterious reptilian clip, and much is being made by fans of the "8" that can be spotted on the snake's (dragon's?) skin. Whatever it means, it's gotten more than 2m views in two hours. Danerys Targaryen could not be reached for comment.

UPDATE: Having scrubbed her socials, Taylor Swift posted the following mysterious image this morning. We have no idea what the hell it means, but because it's Tay, it's news.

pic.twitter.com/p2DyY0e2M3
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 21, 2017

Is it the tail of an animal? A whip? Look at what she's doing to us. In any event, the enigmatic post has earned a staggering number of views (2.5m so far on Instagram), likes, shares and comments, and the memes have already begun.

It's been whispered for some time that Tay will debut a new song and/or video at the MTV VMAs on 8/27.

Shit is about to pop, peeps.

Taylor Swift is off the grid. Her Facebook and Twitter accounts have been cleared of the last 20 months of posts, her website is a black hole and her Instagram and Tumblr accounts are blank.

What this online erasure means is anyone’s guess, but naturally the Internet is going wild speculating that new music is on the way (follow the hashtag #TS6IsComing to jump in). Unlike Trump and his supporters, they have history on their side.

Swift is a very big fan of middle/late August for releasing music. Today marks the three-year anniversary of the first single from 1989, “Shake it Off,” debuting during a Yahoo streaming session. (It went on to be her biggest hit to date). A year later, “Wildest Dreams” was released to radio the last week of August.

“We are Never Ever Getting Back Together” was released this week in 2012 as the lead single from Red, and “Mine,” the first single from Speak Now, was rush-released on 8/4/10—two weeks ahead of its intended release date of 8/18.

It would certainly make sense for Swift and Big Machine to drop new music right about now as the Grammy deadline looms just six weeks away.

That single announcement about a new album or single has quite an audience: 102m Instagram followers, 85.4m on Twitter, 70.5m on Facebook and, among flip phone users, 3.15m on MySpace. Stay tuned.