After weeks of hype, Taylor Swift's epic "Bad Blood" music video arrived last night.
View this video on YouTube
After the initial excitement subsided, some fans felt the fierce, assassin-filled video borrowed too heavily from Britney Spears' 2004 masterpiece, "Toxic."
The Bad Blood music video is basically Joseph Khan recycling the images he used in Toxic and Womanizer but with an all-star cast.
If you claim you didn't think of Toxic when watching the Bad Blood video for the first time, you're lying.
Bad blood is a rip off of toxic. I'm sorry but nothing will ever beat toxic
Which, incidentally, was also directed by music video maestro Joseph Kahn.
Are the videos really that similar? Or are Britney fans just latching on to a single shot? Let's take a look at the videos side-by-side.
1. Both videos open with a zoom into a workplace in the sky, but "Toxic" takes place on a futuristic commercial airliner and "Bad Blood" is set in a pretty standard office building.
Similarity: Medium
2. Both singers, dressed in skimpy white outfits, hang out in spacey voids.
Similarity: Low/Medium
3. Britney spends a lot of the "Toxic" video dressed as a sexy, sci-fi flight attendant and there's no equivalent character in the "Bad Blood" video.
4. And Britney never experiences anything like the betrayal Taylor does at the top of the "Bad Blood" video.
5. Both video worlds feature compact-sized super-spy gear.
Similarity: Medium/High
6. Modified throwing stars are also featured prominently.
Similarity: High
7. But Britney uses her ~feminine wiles~ as a weapon to seduce and deceive bad men, something Taylor never tries.
8. The "Bad Blood" singer just hangs out with track-mate/fellow assassin Kendrick Lamar while she prepares to take down ex-bestie Selena Gomez.
9. These sets are pretty similar though.
Similarity: High
10. And these looks are very similar.
Similarity: High
11. However, while Britney scales walls...
12. Taylor breaks through them.
13. They both love to hang out with hot people on motorcycles though.
Similarity: Medium
14. And they both spend a fair amount of time sauntering through tunnels with red lights.
Similarity: Medium
15. When it comes to arrivals, however, Britney isn't quite as stealthy as Taylor.
16. And Britney never spends time underdressed in an ice tank.
17. But when it comes to strutting in front of explosions, it's hard to tell them apart.
Similarity: High
18. Seriously, they look pretty much identical.
Similarity: High