There’s about a good handful of moments that broke the internet: it happened when the infamous Oscar selfie was posted, it happened when Kim Kardashian released her cover for Paper magazine and it also happened when millions of people couldn’t decide whether a dress was black or blue. Last week it happened again uniting two giant fan bases that seemingly don’t match: NFL fans and Swifties.
“It’s me, hi!”: Meet the Protagonists
In order to understand the cultural impact of this unlikely match, we have to take a closer look at the protagonists.
Travis Kelce is an American football tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs and two-time Superbowl champion. Although the media focus is usually more on the quarterbacks, Kelce managed to make a name for himself through a popular podcast with his brother Jason (American football center for the Philadelphia Eagles), his flashy choice of clothes and a “Bachelor”-style dating show called “Catching Kelce”, which aired on E! Entertainment in 2016. The pinnacle of his media career (well… prior to last weekend) was him hosting Saturday Night Live in May 2023, an honour that is reserved for very few people.
Taylor Swift is… well, Taylor Swift. She started her career in 2005 at the age of 16 as a country singer and swiftly moved on to pop music a few years later. As with many big artists, it was a scandal that really boosted her fame. Unlike with other artists, though, she was not the initiator of the scandal but its victim. After she was announced winner of an MTV Video Music Award for her video to “You Belong with Me”, rapper Kanye West stormed on stage and claimed that Beyoncé should have won for her video to “Single Ladies”.
The incident rattled Swift – as she explains in her Netflix documentary “Miss Americana” – and she took some time out, only to come back even stronger. Fast forward to today and Taylor Swift is without a doubt the biggest pop star in the world with her 2023/2024 Eras Tour breaking record after record.
The Swift Era
Here’s a few fun facts about the Eras Tour:
- For her Singapore concerts, more than 22 million people registered for pre-sale tickets, according to the organisers.
- The positive economic effect of Swift concerts has been dubbed the “TSwift Lift” by financial analysts, who often try to explain it in relation to “a post-pandemic demand shock”, in which consumers are more willing to spend money (sometimes irrationally) on entertainment and lifestyle. (The Wall Street Journal also coined the term “Taylornomics”.)
- Chicago marked the highest hotel occupancy rate in its history for Swift’s stay.
- In order not to miss out on the TSwift Lift, politicians such as Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Chile’s Gabriel Boric have personally petitioned the singer to tour their countries.
- The Eras Tour resulted in a massive boost for Swift’s older music as well. She is the first living artist ever to have had 7 of her albums in the Top 40s of the Billboard 200s. (The first non-living artist to manage to do so was Whitney Houston after her death.) Swift broke her own record only a few weeks later, then having 8 albums in the Top 40s.
- From March 17 to March 18, Glendale, the first stop on Swift’s Eras Tour symbolically changed its name to Swift City. Other cities followed suit, e. g. Pittsburgh was renamed Swiftsburgh and Minneapolis became Swiftieapolis.
- In Seattle, the concerts caused seismic activity of 2.3 on the seismic magnitude scale, which is the equivalent to a low-grade earthquake.
I love the players, and you love the game
Reportedly, it was at one of these Eras Tour concerts that Travis Kelce attempted to give Taylor Swift a friendship bracelet with his number on. Reportedly, she declined. Reportedly, to save her voice.
Nevertheless, there have been rumours that the two were dating and in mid-September, Kelce said in an ESPN interview:
“I told her that, ‘I’ve seen you rock the stage in Arrowhead. You might have to come see me rock the stage in Arrowhead, and see which one’s a little more lit.’”
Travis Kelce to ESPN
When Taylor actually showed up (a move called “ballsy” by Kelce in his podcast), clad in red-and-white clothes and sitting in a luxury box with Mama Kelce, the internet went wild. There were gifs, there were memes, there is unlicensed Tayvis merch (some of which I might have purchased this morning).
But you can only really measure a cultural moment’s impact when the big companies and corporations jump on the bandwagon. During last Sunday’s game, Swift was seen eating “a piece of chicken with ketchup and seemingly ranch”.
This had companies like Lay’s potato chips promote “seemingly ranch” as a fake flavour and Heinz Ketchup announced that they were releasing 100 bottles of their new limited edition: “Ketchup and seemingly ranch”. (Side note: A Heinz spokesperson said they had limited it to 100 bottles because Kelce wears the number 87 and Swift was seen wearing a No. 13 jersey.)
Even the Empire State Building was lit up in “ketchup and seemingly ranch” colours last Wednesday.
A Male Gold Digger? Not in your wildest dreams!
Short disclaimer: I personally don’t care who started Tayvis (or is it Swiftce?) and I think both parties have enough money so that nobody needs to be digging for gold. Neither do I care about why they are hanging out and about whether it’s serious. More interested in the cultural reaction here. (Although I do hope it lasts until the end of October because that’s when my Tayvis merch is supposed to arrive.)
Yes, I know it’s a sacrilege to quote Kanye West in a blog post about Taylor Swift, but I will do it anyway. In Gold Digger, West raps:
Eighteen years, eighteen years
She got one of your kids, got you for eighteen years
I know somebody payin‘ child support for one of his kids
His baby mama car and crib is bigger than his
You will see him on TV any given Sunday
Win the Super Bowl and drive off in a Hyundai
Kanye West, Gold Digger
In the song, West uses the trope of the classic – obviously female – gold digger, who is using child support to elevate her own lifestyle. It is a trope so deeply entrenched in culture, that it seems very hard for people to imagine the male equivalent.
I have had many short, superficial conversations about the topic in the last few days and most people (here in Germany) that are not really that familiar with Taylor Swift have given me very strong “she is just in for the money” vibes. The assumption is: He’s the football star, she is just a pop singer.
But wait a second: Wasn’t it him who tried to give her the friendship bracelet in the first place? Hadn’t she originally rejected him? Isn’t he the one with 3.6 mio. Instagram followers, while she has 273 mio.? Hadn’t his jersey sales gone up by 400% since last Sunday? Hadn’t Kelce’s own brother Jason asked him in their podcast “Well Trav, how does it feel that Taylor Swift finally put you on the map?”
Scanning the internet, I have not seen a single article that accuses Kelce of being a gold digger. What comes closest is a short New York Times article headlined “Travis Kelce Was a Star. Taylor Swift Put Him in Another Orbit.” While the article does very subtly hint at Kelce preparing a plan B for his post-pro-sports-career, it sadly seems to be more preoccupied with how Kelce managed to date Taylor Swift being only (!) a tight end and not even a quarterback.
Was just a prank! Shake it off!
Over on TikTok, however, people are not holding back so much. The fact that a very rich and uber successful woman is dating a slightly less rich and slightly less successful man, seems to spurn some Schadenfreude on TikTok amongst many women. In a popular prank, women troll their football-loving significant others by casually stating that Taylor Swift made Travis Kelce famous, secretly recording the reaction.
It’s a weird – yet entertaining – battle of the sexes in which women seem to send Taylor Swift in a sparkling onesie as their champion to single-handedly take on all of the hyper-masculine, muscular NFL dudes, who have been keeping their husbands hostage on their sofas every weekend.
Weirdly enough, it is this battle that ultimately unites prankster and pranked in an unexpected shared appreciation for sports, as TikTokers Kelley and Luis Carasquillo state on NBC.
“I think it’s so fun because now we can do it as a family and my stepdaughter wants to watch it because Taylor Swift is involved,” Kelley said. “She’s never really been the sports girl at all, and now she’s like, ‘Do you guys want to watch the game next week?’”
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce inpsire viral trend on TikTok, NBC
Kelley Carasquillo adds:
The prank also did actually inspire the couple, based in Austin, Texas, to have a serious conversation about the topic. Kelley pointed out that while the NFL is very American, Taylor Swift is a global sensation.
“When you say football anywhere else in the world, people think soccer,” she said. “She’s bringing him to a global scale and people around the world know who she is.”
Unfortunately, the couple didn’t state whether Mr. Carasquillo and other male members of the family were now equally eager to see a Taylor Swift show.
Btw, anyone wants to sell some tickets??
Couch Potato Chronicles 
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