Taylor Swift revealed the track list for her newest album, The Tortured Poets Department, on Instagram earlier this week, but she isn’t the only celebrity on the project who’s creating buzz around Chapel Hill. 

Fans spotted a hidden easter egg, written in tiny, almost unreadable print: one of the songs, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” features Ross White, a professor from the UNC English and Comparative Literature Department, who is said to be second only to Swift herself in poetry writing.

“He’s got prose,” said a student in White’s Intro to Poetry course. “And boy, he’s been tortured ever since Linda’s closed and he hasn’t been able to host Tuesday Trivia Nights. Last week, I brought in a poem about my dead snake, and he laughed. Told me ‘snake’ and ‘heartbreak’ was an elementary-level rhyme. I’ll have to pass/fail the class now.”

Other fans of the two writers have had their suspicions about a collaboration for months. White was reportedly absent from multiple class meetings last semester for “book readings,” and many students theorize these were fabricated in order to give White more time in the studio with Swift.

“The first time I suspected this collaboration was last July when pictures of White celebrating Independence Day alongside the Swiftie squad took over Instagram,” a fan said. The fan explained that they belonged to the fast-growing “Whiftie” fandom, the intersection of Taylor Swift and Ross White fans. 

There is speculation across social media on whether White is a co-writer or plans to make his debut as a pop-synth singer, said another English professor. 

“Having a singer-songwriter-professor at UNC would get the English Department the attention needed for more funding,” the professor said. “This album could get us a faster elevator in Greenlaw.”

Students, fans, friends and family of White eagerly await more information via the Creative Writing mailing list.