Taylor Swift fans take aim at Irish folk band over Twitter joke

"We literally just got thousands of abusive messages in the space of 10 mins..."

Usually when you hear about "the stan culture" of a particular musical act, they have focused their attentions on another large musical act, maybe one in direct competition with the one they're a huge fan of. This week however, an Irish folk band were on the receiving end of that stan spotlight, when four-piece Irish folk band Lankum were singled out by some of the more... passionate Taylor Swift fans. It all began when a fan of Lankum stated on Twitter that they "Still can't believe that Taylor Swift undespitubly [sp] ripped off the cover of Beneath the Earth and Sky by Lankum [for] her Folklore album cover". The fan also tweeted a side-by-side image of Lankum's 2017 album cover and Swift's 2020 album cover: Lankum responded to this tweet, saying "And the video for Cold Old Fire... Taylor Swift get some fresh ideas hun" You can check out that music video, also from 2017, right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khJshMYQ90g It was at this point that the Taylor Swift fans descended on the Irish band, responding in their thousands. Lankum eventually deleted their initial tweet, but responded to the situation with the following: "We literally just got thousands of abusive messages in the space of 10 mins, pictures of cut wrists and a threat to have our organs harvested for making an incredibly obvious joke about Taylor Swift robbing our ideas. Are people really this stupid?" All we'll say is that Lankum's Between the Earth and Sky album is fantastic, and Taylor Swift's Folklore album is also fantastic, and there should be enough room in the world to like MORE THAN ONE THING, and also there should be room for everyone - EVERYONE! - to have a little fun poked at them, without retaliating so harshly. READ NEXT: The trailer for the new David Bowie biopic is already getting quite the reaction