EXPLAINER: Why everyone is talking about Taylor Swift's new snake imagery.

When Taylor Swift wiped her entire social media footprint earlier this month, it felt as though the great fire of Alexandria had made it into the modern world; so many priceless, irreplaceable and important historical documents, gone.

But like Britney Spears post-2007, Tay Tay is back. And with her, she’s bringing several videos of a snake – the latest of which shows the snake attacking – and a new album titled Reputation. Subtle, right?

But why a snake, why now, and why so, well, obvious?

The first question is a fairly easy one to answer.

For years, Taylor Swift haters have been referring to the country music and pop star as a snake. The label really took on a life of its own, though, in 2016 after Kim Kardashian released 22 videos to Snapchat that showed an audio conversation of Swift giving her blessing for Kanye West to reference her in his song Famous. The snaps were released after Swift proclaimed she had no knowledge of the song and had not given any form of consent to West.

#taylorswiftisasnake began trending, and in the midst of the feud, Kardashian added further fuel to the fire by tweeting, “Wait it’s legit National Snake Day?!?!? They have holidays for everybody, I mean everything these days!”

As to the question of why now, again, the answer is relatively simple: the timing suits her.

As we now know, Swift has a new upcoming album that needs hype, promotion and a whole lot of interest. So why not liberally douse it in the imagery of your enemies words and sit back to watch the world speculate?

And as for why so obvious? Well, as any long-term Swifty will know, this is what Taylor Swift does.

Turning the words of her critics into a highly profitable career move is nothing new for the 27-year-old. Remember when she was renowned for being 'the bitter ex-girlfriend' and the woman who only knew how to write songs about her ex-boyfriends?

Enter 1989, an album that not only called out the criticisms as sexist and simplistic (which, in her defense they absolutely were) but also produced a brand of non-threatening female empowerment that everyone, for a while at least, wanted to get on board with. She turned hate into profit and laughed all the way to the bank.

Time and time and time again, Swift has turned the words of her haters into her success. And if the formula works, why not make the snake her new image?

Naturally, Kardashian, the high priestess of social media herself, has responded in a way too perfect for even Swift to dream up. She's blocked the snake emoji from the comments section on all of her social media accounts.

Listen: Taylor Swift is done with subtlety and in 2017, is all about the clear messages.