Album cover of Folklore.
The Teenage Love Triangle is a fictional love triangle between three teenagers created by Taylor Swift on her eighth studio album Folklore. Swift created a love story between three characters that she created named Betty, James, and Augustine. The songs "betty", "cardigan", and "august" are written from their perspectives.
The story goes that James and Betty were dating during the school year, and James cheated on Betty with another girl during the summer. Eventually, James goes back and apologizes to Betty and they get back together. However, in "august", listeners learn that the brief romance between James and Augustine wasn't just "a summer thing" to her, and that she was actually in love with him.
Swift said on her Instagram post. "...I created character arcs & recurring themes that map out who is singing about who. For example, there's a collection of 3 songs I refer to as The Teenage Love Triangle. These 3 songs explore a love triangle from all 3 people's perspectives at different times in their lives."
Trivia[]
- "betty" is sung from James's perspective.
- "cardigan" is told from Betty's perspective.
- "cardigan" also has some elements of Swift's own life interwoven with the story of the Teenage Love Triangle. The song can be seen as Swift talking to her fans and knowing that they would come back to her after the controversy and drama that happened in 2016 with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
- "august" Is sung from Augustine's perspective.
- When folklore first came out, fans speculated that Inez was "the other girl who's name is unknown" but she is merely someone James and Betty know that spreads rumors.
- Fans named "the other girl" whose name is unknown Augustine or August.
- The characters James, Betty, and Inez are named after Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively's daughters.
- A nickname used by Rebekah Harkness, the woman whose life story is told through "the last great american dynasty", is Betty, which is another parallel between the names of characters in folklore.
- Swift revealed that she intentionally made the third character's name unknown, but she later revealed that her name was either "Augusta" or "Augustine" in the folklore: the long pond studio sessions special.
- Swift confirmed that Betty and James got back together in the folklore: the long pond studio sessions special.