Stephen Smysnuik
Everyone’s losing it over Taylor Swift’s engagement
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce / Instagram
The Topline
- Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce announced their engagement on August 26 via a joint Instagram post captioned, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.”
- According to the Associated Press, combined Instagram likes surpassed 14 million shortly after the announcement, while Vox described the upcoming nuptials as “the wedding of the century.”
This love unites us all
Donald Trump gave his blessing . Donald Trump! He hates Taylor Swift! Or so he’s said . You can’t really trust anything that guy says.
But if that unholy blob of hamburger grease can set aside the vitriol for a few seconds to congratulate the couple, maybe it’s possible we’ll see some kind of cultural healing take place. Factions unite…right?
Realistically, no, but the nuptials do merge America’s most popular pop star – essentially a one-woman economy – with America’s most popular sport. It is a converging of cultural factions, a heartwarming distraction from the onslaught of depressing news from every which way.
Vox framed the engagement as a cultural reset, fusing celebrity culture with NFL mythology in a way that hasn’t really been done before. Feminist-leaning women and brawny dudes now have something to talk about that isn’t politics.
And isn’t that the point? Don’t we all need a loving distraction, dosed with sweetener? Something to remind ourselves that love is possible – that there’s something beyond the endless bickering about [insert angry topic du jour].
There are very serious issues happening in the world, there’s no doubt, and none of them should be ignored. But everything doesn’t need to be sad and depressing all the freakin’ time. We can have fun, too. We can believe in happy, beautiful things, too. Everything can exist at once. Yin and yang and such.
Yes, the announcement was manicured for maximum engagement, and that’s part of its potency. It’s rich with symbolism. That ring? Mmmm-mmm-mmmm. Nice work, there Kelce. That gold-banded antique diamond isn't just a promise ring – it signals a promise of endurance in an era where celebrity relationships have the shelf life of fresh milk (here’s looking at you, Liam and Pamela ).
The couple is seen as aspirational, even conservative, in an all-American kinda way, promoting marriage, durability, tradition – all things that have been rattled by today’s divisive political and cultural environment.
So what?
This is a rare piece of good cultural news that unites the various factions of popular American culture – sports, Swifties, and everyone’s mom. It’s an American fairy tale, written in real time.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect
This isn’t love, hun, it’s logistics.
The storybook garden proposal was announced just weeks after Swift announced her new album , The Life of a Showgirl (notably, on Kelce’s podcast) and just over a month before she actually releases it. It’s a rollout strategy for the ages. Not that anyone blames her. You gotta keep the hype alive somehow.
The ring reveal isn’t just sentimental, it’s branded content, and it’s driving anyone already allergic to mushy displays of affection into a tizzy. Sports purists were already bothered that every Chiefs broadcast had T-Swift on display, and now celebrity culture’s hostile takeover of football is nearing its final stage.
Even the misogynists are getting in on the action. Charlie Kirk told Swift to “submit to your husband.” Ben Shapiro spun it as marriage’s triumph over “wokeness,” whatever that means. No matter which way you slice it, these goons will find a way to drive that wedge. Fox News literally cut away from Trump cabinet coverage to announce Swift’s engagement – hopping from one slice of mindlessness to another.
At least Larry David got it right, commenting, “I don’t give a shit. ” Nor should he! Who cares? Seriously, who cares. Why do I care? Why am I even writing this? As I do so, the smell of wildfire smoke is filling my nostrils, a thin haze permeating the air just outside my window. Israel wages a war on Palestinians. Ukraine and Russia remained deadlocked in an endless war. As Trump congratulates the happy couple, he takes another step to assert his authoritarian domain.
This is about as egregious a cultural distraction as there’s ever been because it’s so clearly strategized, planned out, mapped out, professionally and expertly curated – crafted for maximum engagement (no pun intended).
Swift and Kelce deserve happiness, as does anyone not killing puppies, defrauding seniors from their retirement savings or, y’know, committing war crimes. And, yes, it would be nice if this is the true love that can last the ages and inspire a broken, fragmented culture to love itself (or whatever).
But given the pressures of celebrity marriages, the success rate of each, not to mention Swift’s (at this point legendary) dating history, we’ll most definitely be reading about the “divorce of the century” in no time.
So what?
Whatever man, barf.
