Photo: Gotham/GC Images
As you may have heard, a pop star and a football player announced their engagement this week. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s announcement didn’t actually break the internet, but it did trigger an avalanche of content. It seems like everybody, everywhere, has had something to say about the news. I may not be a Swiftie, but I have just read a ridiculous number of takes on Taylor Swift’s engagement — here’s what there was to learn.
It’s the ‘engagement of the century’
According to the Daily News and many others.
It brings us all together
MSNBC’s Hannah Holland says the engagement is an American cultural touchstone:
Together, Swift and Kelce have managed to do what only a few strategic and high-budget television shows and movies have managed in the past few years: They are monocultural, hegemonic. Between the music and the football, this relationship knocks down cultural silos that have become increasingly formidable and unavoidably political. It is less about the support or the well wishes coming from both sides of the aisle, from different socioeconomic strata, and from all different age groups than it is the simple fact that everyone actually knows about this.
One explanation — aside, of course, from their combined megastardom — for why this engagement is such a rare monocultural event is that it is strongly rooted in convention and Americana archetypes. For those leaning left politically, there’s either an old-world whimsy or traditionalism worthy of an eyeroll. For those more firmly on the right, it’s confirmation of a successful all-American union.
And both represent the impossible heights of hard work and ambition — both being from upper-middle-class families before they achieved rare levels of success and celebrity — that drive the general myth and fallacy of the American dream.
America’s royal wedding
The Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce is the American Royal Wedding.
— BB (@BrendanBurkeNRT) August 26, 2025
Writes People’s Erin Hill:
For two years, their romance has felt like a modern fairytale, unfolding with the kind of public fascination usually reserved for Buckingham Palace balconies and Westminster Abbey aisles. Now, with an engagement ring in play (designed by Travis!), it’s not a stretch to say: this might be the closest thing America gets to a royal wedding. And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what we need right now. …
America doesn’t have a monarchy, but Meghan’s royal wedding to Harry proved how deeply we crave the pageantry. And the marriage of music’s reigning queen to football’s most charismatic star has the potential to deliver the pomp and unity of a royal wedding — without the tiaras, but with just as much sparkle.
The Daily Beast’s Kevin Fallon can’t wait for it to blot out the sun:
Congrats to Taylor and Travis on their love and partnership, or whatever. But this has long not been about them. We need this.
We need the escapism, the permission to feel emotional over the engagement between two people we have never met. We need the parasocial excitement, as if we’re a part of their close circle of love and community that this union will bless.
We need the cheesiness of the photo shoot in that Secret Gardenfever-dream set, and of Taylor’s gloriously corny caption. We need the fantasy and the glamor of knowing how absolutely filthy rich and fabulously famous these people are, so we can daydream about their lavish wedding and ensuing married life.
And we need all of this to be as absolutely basic as everything about this all has become in order to relate. So millennial is Taylor Swift that, despite being the biggest star in the world marrying one of the most successful athletes in modern times, she still wants to have a lil’ engagement photo shoot and post it on her Insta with a perfunctory “did at thing!” caption. …
This is our royal wedding. This is our Will and Kate, our Harry and Meghan. The media will be insatiable in its coverage of it. Social media will be a circus, surely unable to wrangle its clowns into the tent. There will be celebration and mockery—and I think that’s all kind of fun.
It will be the wedding of the century (sorry, Bezos)
According to some publicist who spoke with British gossip columnist Rob Shuter:
“This is bigger than Jeff Bezos’ wedding,” one top publicist confides to #ShuterScoop. “Agents, managers, and publicists are calling nonstop. Everyone wants their client at Taylor and Travis’s wedding.” The names being thrown into the ring are staggering. Oscar winners, chart-topping singers, billion-dollar tech moguls — even politicians are quietly lobbying for a seat. “If you’re not at this wedding, were you even relevant in 2025?” one insider cracks. And it’s not just about attending. Superstar performers are literally begging to sing at the reception. “There’s already a waiting list,” laughs another source. “Some are pitching mashups of Taylor’s own hits as wedding tributes.”
It will be the NDA-signing opportunity of the century
Event planner Stefanie Cove tells the Cut that the high profile wedding is going to require a ton of extra paperwork:
The logistics will be massive. NDAs everywhere. Nobody would even know who it was for until they were literally serving the salad to them. I would imagine that they can’t even go to the normal meetings and tastings and things that other people get to enjoy when they’re planning a wedding. So they need a planner who can really represent them through all of that and guide them.
Read what 15 other event planners had to say about the prospective wedding here.
It will also be the biggest pop wedding in history
Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield sort of dreads what comes next:
Nobody’s dreamed up more lavish romantic scenarios than Taylor, and she’s got a groom who enjoys public spectacle as much as she does — Lord help us all. Pop folklore is full of legendary over-the-top ceremonies. There’s Mick Jagger marrying Bianca Jagger at Saint Tropez in 1971, a chaotic paparazzi riot that invented the rock star wedding as we know it. (Keith Richards was best man — you might not believe this, but he passed out and missed the reception.) Sly Stone marrying his girlfriend Kathy Silva onstage at a sold-out Madison Square Garden. John and Yoko turning their nuptials into a globe-trotting anti-war publicity tour and a hit song, “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” Mariah Carey marrying her label boss Tommy Mottola, with a star-studded guest list running from Robert De Niro to Ozzy Osbourne.
Who can forget Celine Dion marrying her manager in 1994 wearing an iconic six-pound diamond tiara, so heavy she could barely walk down the aisle? (It gouged into her forehead and put her in the hospital — oh, the power of love.) Or Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown giving their guests a slice of their 18-tier wedding cake with a card saying, “Place this cake under your pillow and dream of your own true love”? And make no mistake — Taylor is the kind of pop geek who knows all these stories cold, so this is primed to be the biggest pop wedding of all.
And it’s a millennial milestone
Writes (millennial) Emily Rella at People:
While some might say that Swift and Kelce’s engagement has made millennials believe in love again, I’m not sure that’s exactly right. I think we’ve always believed in love and so has Taylor — she’s written 11 albums (and another one on the way) about love and the ways it heals and destroys, makes or breaks us. By vicariously living through Swift’s ups and downs in relationships, we’ve seen our own experiences mirrored in hers and it’s helped us find closure and understanding in our own. …
When I think back to why I teared up over the engagement photos of someone I don’t even know on a personal level, I realize what was happening. I had watched for over a decade as someone sang and wrote about this ultimate form of love and now she finally found it. Everything she had dreamed of was real. There it was, there was the tangible proof. So why should I ever believe that everything I dream of can’t be real, too? Maybe there isn’t a time limit, or one right way or one right path in life and in love.
Taylor must get a prenup
Per the Daily Mail, lawyer Sarah Jane Boon insists:
As one of the most successful music artists in the world, Taylor Swift has much to look to protect in a pre-nuptial agreement, not least her hugely valuable back catalogue of music, developed over two decades in the period prior to her relationship with Travis Kelce. Like many who consider entering into a pre-nuptial agreement, Swift and Kelce may look to put in a place an agreement that ringfences the assets they have respectively built up prior to their marriage but provides for them to share in what they will go on to build as a married couple.
And prenups are the “most romantic part of any marriage”
According to the people you pay to draft prenups:
Musician Taylor Swift has announced her engagement to Kansas City-based podcaster and NFL athlete Travis Kelce. There’s no better time to take a look at the most romantic part of any marriage, the prenup: https://t.co/GuvldIw5V1 pic.twitter.com/x1duRjm259
— American Bar Association (@ABAesq) August 26, 2025
And Taylor’s prenup would be part of a “massive generational shift”
Notes Charles Passy at Marketwatch:
[L]egal experts say it really doesn’t matter whether you have billions of dollars or pennies to your name — you should consider a prenup in any case to ensure some financial protection should your marriage go awry.
And they say many women, especially of the millennial generation, are indeed heeding that message, given their growing economic power. It’s the flipping of a decades-old playbook in which men typically had more money — or greater earning potential — and were the ones who insisted upon the prenup.
“It’s a massive generational shift,” said Libby Leffler, founder and chief executive of First, an online legal platform that helps people prepare prenups. Leffler notes that women constitute 50% of First’s clients for prenups in opposite-sex marriages. Similarly, HelloPrenup, another online platform, says 52% of its clients are women.
(The Cut has more on the prenup discourse here.)
But this may mean Taylor isn’t secretly gay
As the Cut’s Elizabeth Gulino reports, there has been some sudden angst on the Gaylor subreddit:
There’s a community of superfans who aren’t exactly thrilled, and on Tuesday, they convened in the 50,000-member-strong r/GaylorSwift sub-Reddit to rehash their long-standing theory that Swift is queer. Let’s just say they aren’t doing great, and in the midst of their distress, the sub-Reddit went from public to private shortly after the couple’s announcement.
To give you a gist of the vibe over on r/GaylorSwift, one user likened Swift’s striped Ralph Lauren proposal dress to a prisoner’s outfit, while another said this was all part of her marketing playbook. Another wrote that they believed the engagement was “performance art at its finest,” while someone else said that “nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever convince me that Kaylor wasn’t real,” referencing the popular Gaylor theory that Swift and Karlie Kloss were more than just friends.
Their engagement pics will change engagement pics
Writes Petapixel’s Kate Garibaldi:
Swift and Kelce’s engagement photos highlight a style that blends natural light, lush floral backdrops, and an editorial composition that feels more lifestyle meets documentary than studio crisp. This creates an aesthetic of familiarity, almost intimate and in-the-moment, while also being highly curated — a balance that many couples may now seek for their own announcements. …
Engagement photographers are likely to soon have clients request shoots that echo this blend of fine-art styling and candid storytelling, close-up detail shots of rings, and environments that feel both old-world, lush, romantic, and yet wholly authentic. Those who can combine technical mastery with a cinematic sensibility may be best positioned to capture this new wave of demand.
Their engagement pics ‘revive the English cottage garden’
Explains Home and Gardens’ Thom Rutter:
We’ve seen a resurgence in interest in the untamed beauty of a classic English cottage garden over the past few years, and Taylor and Travis’s design taps into this garden trend in the most classic way. … While this setup has obviously been created for the engagement, the lesson here is that dense planting will always be impactful. After all, bare soil in garden borders is never a pleasant sight.
The hydrangeas in their engagement pics may have a hidden meaning
Speculates Brides’ Ellen O’Brien:
Known as one of the quintessential summer blooms, hydrangeas were the perfect textural addition to the football star’s August proposal setup. These florals are tied to deep emotions, often symbolizing understanding and apology. Due to the couple’s high-profile relationship, this flower may be a nod to the more intimate and private dynamic they have with one another.
This was a moment of mass delight
Novelist Jennifer Weiner wants to believe, per her New York Times op-ed:
You might think anything that deliberate would generate a wave of backlash, a tsunami of cynicism. And yet judging from the early returns on social media, the general feeling appeared to be, well, delight. “Are my daughter and I sitting in a coffee shop crying bc I am leaving her at college today? No. Are we crying because Taylor and Travis are getting married? Absolutely,” read one fairly typical sentiment.
The news feels like a tiny piece of joy in a sea of troubles, a little bit of brightness in the dark. Yes, it was probably all micromanaged. It still made me happy — and hopeful. Maybe there are still good men. Maybe love still wins. …
At a moment when women’s professional ambitions are being cast as anti-family, and boys are being trained to believe that emotions are weakness, wearing your heart on your sleeve — for the self-declared childless cat lady, the president’s punching bag, the object of suspicion of so many of your own fans — qualifies as some serious role model behavior.
Taylor has set a new benchmark for fame
Slate’s Heather Schwedel can’t believe how much she cares about this engagement:
In 2023, during the first few months of the “Eras” tour, I remember thinking that Taylor Swift could not possibly get any more famous, that she could not possibly keep this hot streak going, and every time, she found a way to keep winning, to get even bigger, to occupy more space in my brain. And now she’s done it again.
It’s universally personal
Vogue’s Claire Cohen has a theory:
Is it just me or is there something about Taylor Swift’s betrothal to NFL star Travis Kelce that feels a lot more personal than any other ‘extremely famous celebrity engaged to a less famous celebrity’? The culmination of their two-year relationship is something many of us are strangely invested in, even if we’re only mild Swifties. Even pals who have never shown any interest in the singer prior to this have piped up to say that this was the heartwarming slash distracting news they needed. Truth be told, there have been friends’ engagements that I was less emotionally invested in than this one. That’s normal, right?
Maybe it’s because the narrative arc that Swift has taken us on over her 11 albums so far (the 12th, The Life of a Showgirl, arriving imminently) is so familiar and relatable that it feels personal: first love, unrequited love, on-and-off-then-on-again love. Love that is cruel, manipulative, hopeful, comfortable, addictive, frustrating, depressing and a giant red flag. Doesn’t that describe our twenties and thirties, too? She’s not our best friend but she’s occasionally felt like one—or, at least, someone going through the same old crap that we all have. (Admittedly while turning her heartbreak into a billion dollar music empire).
Even your parents are happy
The Cut’s Emily Leibert notes the sudden trend:
Today, I learned that my 67-year-old father is a Swiftie. Okay, maybe not a certified Swiftie per se, but he’s culturally tapped in enough to know that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement is something he should be texting about with his 30-something daughter. I expected several group chats to blow up with ring commentary, but I did not foresee my dad writing in earnest, “Kelsey proposed to Taylor! Omg I’m so excited.”
Apparently, I’m not the only one who received an over-the-moon text from their parents about this engagement.
And all of this could inspire a wedding boom
According to a relationship expert who spoke with Fox News:
“Taylor and Travis represent something rare in celebrity culture: mutual admiration and grounded authenticity,” relationship expert Colette Jane Fehr told Fox News Digital. “Their story has the power to spark what I’d call a ‘celebration boom,’ not just in weddings but in couples investing more intentionally in their own relationships. Wedding planners and venues should prepare for couples who want ceremonies that reflect joy, playfulness, and heartfelt connection, qualities Taylor and Travis model so beautifully.”
Fehr revealed that when a visible couple like Travis and Taylor celebrate their love in such an authentic and playful way, it has the power to influence cultural trends.
“Their engagement shows that true connection, rooted in humor, respect, and presence, thrives even under the world’s spotlight,” she said. “Couples everywhere will look to them as proof that love doesn’t have to be performative; it can be deeply joyful and real. That kind of visibility can inspire a wave of weddings where couples want to emulate not just the style, but the spirit of their bond.”
No, actually, nobody cares
Per YouGov’s August 26 poll, maybe the mania is just a bubble:
Illustration: YouGov
Will they get married in…
The destination speculation (and local wedding venue marketing opportunity) is afoot. A sample of just some of the suggestions/theories:
• Pennsylvania• Texas, or more specifically, Houston or Austin• Cleveland• New Zealand• Tennessee• Michigan• North Carolina• Santa Barbara• Sioux Falls, South Dakota• The Empire State Building• Rhode Island• A spectacular castle in Ireland• The Super Bowl
Cities should compete to host the wedding
So says Vulture’s Nicholas Quah:
Smart money should point to cities central to Taylor lore: New York, London, Nashville, or that Rhode Island mansion where she threw a bunch of parties and was the subject of “The Last Great American Dynasty.” (I hear The Gilded Age really popped this summer.) It could even be her actual hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania. Travis brings his own claims, too, between his Ohio roots and Kansas City legacy, since that’s where he has spent his entire career. But tilting the scales toward him doesn’t feel very on brand for Taylor. He’s an Über-wife guy in waiting! Los Angeles, as well, is technically an option, but a California wedding just feels so generic, and it certainly lacks the mythological zhuzh this particular union clearly demands.
But why limit the possible options to Swift-Kelce lore when you have the entire country available? After all, this decision is really about us, the people. Why shouldn’t we get to play a part in choosing the site of the century’s most scrutinized nuptials? And why not televise it?
Kelce is a new model of modern masculinity
The Atlantic’s Helen Lewis congratulates Swift:
A big hunk. A supportive partner. A man who is sensitive and good with kids but can also chug a beer and dance in public. A man who has reached the top of his own profession and is happy to be with a woman at the top of hers. I mean, come on. Kelce represents a romantic ideal, the idea that you don’t have to compromise. You can have someone who looks perfect on paper, someone of whom your family approves, someone who is hot but not arrogant, someone you love. A woman can have it all.
But he dropped to the wrong knee
The Washington Post’s Amber Ferguson consulted etiquette experts:
The knee debate is a relic more than a rule. “A long time ago, back in medieval times, the tradition was on the left knee. People said it represented devotion,” said Lizzie Post, co-president of the Emily Post Institute (and a proud Swiftie herself). “Today, it absolutely does not matter. It’s whatever is going to be comfortable, whatever’s going to keep you stable, whatever makes it easiest to present the ring. If that’s what you’re doing.”
In Kelce’s case, Post joked, “for an NFL player, for the amount of time he’s been playing, he gets down on whatever knee feels comfortable.”
And he maybe bought her an unethical diamond
Futurism’s Noor Al-Sibai investigates:
In interviews with Vogue, jewelry experts suggested that the 35-year-old songwriter’s “old mine-cut” diamond, which is characterized by its rounded edges, could be anywhere between eight and 15 carats, potentially running Kelce up to a million dollars.
The question of its provenance is more complex. Though lab-grown diamonds can indeed be cut in the old mine style, the consensus among jewelry experts who have weighed in on the pop star’s rock seems to be that its size and brilliance mean it’s likely mined, not lab-grown. As the New York Times notes, Lubeck generally works with natural gems, lending credence to that theory. …
As beautiful as natural gemstones are, they carry with them significant concerns about their relationship to brutal armed conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa. Starting around 1990 and tapering off somewhat at the turn of the century, militias in countries like Angola, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo used these “blood” or “conflict” diamonds to buy weapons for their civil wars and insurgencies that are said to have killed millions of innocent people.
Are antique gemstones from before that period more ethical? Specifics vary, but as a whole, the diamond industry has for hundreds of years been a cesspool of racism, violence, exploitation and generalized human suffering. You can argue that the harm’s already been done, or maybe that diamonds from a specific region are better or worse than others, but the entire picture is icky.
Trump says he’s happy for them — but what’s he really up to?
Our own Margaret Hartmann notes the vengeful president’s suspicious sudden warmth toward his perceived nemesis:
Sure, “I wish them a lot of luck” could be read as *Good luck … you’re going to need it!*But calling Kelce a “great guy” and Swift a “terrific person” doesn’t really support that interpretation.
So what the heck is going on here? Did Trump realize it was pretty gauche to try to steal the spotlight from Swift and Kelce by tweeting about them before the 2024 Super Bowl and taunting the singer after this year’s game? Or did he suddenly forget that he declared “I hate Taylor Swift” after the singer endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024, despite reminding us of that fact in a Truth Social rant less than a month ago?
Did Trump congratulate the couple because he just says whatever he thinks people standing in front of him want to hear? Was he so caught off guard that he couldn’t come up with a good insult? Is he lulling us into a false sense of security so we’ll be even more appalled when he posts something appallingly rude about Travis and Taylor on their wedding day?
Trump’s response is him recognizing himself in Taylor
Argues Molly Isaacs at The New Statesman:
The opening line of Trump’s guide to business is a statement of his motivating force: “I don’t do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it.” It’s Swiftian poetry really. She performs not because she must, but because she can, and because we keep watching. Like Trump, Swift understands that the game isn’t won with subtlety or talent, it’s about volume. Her marriage to Kelce will amplify her. Trump’s grudging praise is less an endorsement than a recognition of a shared instinct to play the game, to be “The Man”. The question then is no longer who Taylor Swift is but what she represents. And now, she represents totality: a figure who transcends ideology, genre and even sincerity. She doesn’t speak to the moment; she engulfs it, just like Trump. They aren’t just playing the game, they have become the game, and made it impossible to imagine anything outside it.
This is a win for children-producing lifelong unions
So argues Federalist managing editor Kylee Griswold:
Hate on the ring and her lyrics and her NFL presence all you want — but 1 year ago, Taylor Swift was signing off as a “childless cat lady,” and now she’s committing to a lifelong union that’s intended to produce children. This is a win.
Now start making babies!
One of the most prominent responses to the engagement from people on the right has been to celebrate the idea of Taylor and Travis pitching in on repopulation.
And they could trigger a baby boom
Some pronatalists are feeling hopeful:
Pregnancy is contagious. Familism and Natalism are conveyed culturally. If Kelce and Swift have kids and quickly, this could trigger a Baby Boom.
— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) August 26, 2025
Unless Taylor is too old
The Hill contributor Elizabeth Grace Matthew thinks Swift is setting a bad example:
Taylor Swift is 35. Younger women are therefore more apt to see her wedding and potential child-bearings as aspirational for a late 30s era than to emulate it at a time when it means they could have a bunch of kids. And I am not sure how many 35 yo women are influenced as much as younger women are by celebrity goings-on. So, while I am glad they’re getting married and hope they’ll be happy and would rather have 35 yos get married than not get married…I’m about 1/100th as pleased and optimistic about any cultural influence as I would be if they we’re 25 instead.
The ‘ultimate capstone marriage’
According to Washington Post columnist Ramesh Ponnuru:
If the Kelce-Swift engagement departs from her early songs, it reflects a modern marriage ideal, in which two people make a lifetime commitment only after establishing themselves. …
[O]ver the years, the view that it’s better to have varied romantic experiences, a developed career and economic stability before marriage has become ever more dominant. Sociologist Andrew Cherlin calls it “capstone marriage,” in which “the wedding is the last brick put in place” in a good life. He contrasts it with an older model of marriage that saw it as the “cornerstone” of a good life instead: among the first bricks of adulthood instead of the last. Americans are getting married later and later, with median ages at first marriage being slightly over 30 for men and 28 for women, up from 22 and 20 in the 1950s.
Many millions of people have followed the new capstone model to great happiness, and we should all hope that our newly engaged celebrities join their ranks. But this cultural shift has come with some costs. One is that fewer people get married — not everyone achieves a capstone — and the people who do spend a smaller fraction of their lives married. That makes for an unhappier society: The social scientists assure us that marriage is strongly associated with happiness, even after correcting for nearly everything they can correct for.
Taylor ‘should submit to her husband’
MAGA opportunist Charlie Kirk seizes his opportunity to tell Swift, via his podcast: “Reject feminism, submit to your husband, Taylor – you’re not in charge.”
No, Taylor’s definitely not a tradwife
At Salon, Amanda Marcotte ridicules Kirk and anyone else who is projecting right wing values onto Swift and her engagement:
This is all nonsense, and not just because Swift isn’t giving up her cats. It’s unlikely that Kirk is deluded enough to think that Swift has any intention of hanging up her guitar to play housewife to a man who, at 35, is facing retirement from a career that has a much shorter shelf life than a musician’s. Instead, Kirk is cynically manipulating his male audience. If these guys shaped up and started treating women better, they might find that their relationships would be more successful. If more men stopped wallowing in fantasies of capturing submissive tradwives and learned to just appreciate women as full human beings, that would be great not just for those guys, but also for society. That simple change in mindset would reduce loneliness and increase stability, which conservatives say they want. But then it would also lessen polarization and alienation, which is what MAGA influencers depend on to build their audiences. That’s their game: Right-wing pundits encourage self-harm in their audiences, and they laugh all the way to the bank while doing it.
And yes, it’s also true that Swift makes money by packaging her life as entertainment. But she’s earning bank by sending a message of self-respect to her audience. In a world where it seems everything seems grosser and scammier all the time, we should be glad that there’s at least one star who is doing well by selling positivity. That, and not “tradition,” is why normal people are wishing the happy couple well.
‘Be more like Travis’
Slate’s Jill Filipovic argues that conservatives should quit their weird obsession with Taylor and learn from Travis:
Swift is, in other words, the prototypically ambitious and successful American woman: focusing on her career, dating around in her 20s, marrying in her 30s, and delaying childbearing (or not doing it at all). She’s not a bellwether; she’s a thermometer.
This group of American women—the Success Daughters—also have better-than-average access to egalitarian-minded men, as American men tend to get more liberal with higher educational attainment. It’s not exactly cool to quote Lean In these days, but Sheryl Sandberg’s advice to marry a supportive man who at least aspires to equality remains solid. The problem is that there really aren’t that many feminist-minded fish in the already limited sea of self-sufficient men, and now, women don’t have to rely on men for financial support. It’s that dearth that has driven down marriage rates. And unfortunately, neither liberals nor conservatives seem to have come up with a way to present a positive masculinity that doesn’t either insult women or suggest that men are inherently toxic.
Travis Kelce might be one answer, and conservatives could embrace him and encourage more men to be like him: A guy who seems to genuinely like the woman he’s with, who sees her as an equal partner, and who acts accordingly. Listen, Kelce is not exactly a liberal feminist writer’s dream man either, but fellas: It is not “gay” to like your girlfriend, to be impressed with her success, to care deeply about your own job and place in the world, and to behave as though she is just as important as you are.
If conservatives want to increase marriage rates, they don’t need to tell women to get themselves to the altar like Taylor. They need to find a way to encourage men to be more like Travis.
Taylor pulled off an all time PR coup
GQ’s Chris Black is very impressed:
Swift’s commitment to playing the game will be studied for years to come. Her moves are calculated and deliberate. I believe that Swift and Kelce are in love and genuinely happy, but I also think making her personal life part of an album rollout (The Life of a Showgirl is out on October 3rd) is a smart play in today’s ever-more-cutthroat attention economy. Rollout culture has become exhausting for artists and fans—the non-stop TikTok series appearances, podcasts (Swift went on “New Heights,” the show Travis Kelce co-hosts with his brother, Jason), well-placed “revealing” interviews, posting live photos from every show (“Thanks Boston, last night was amazing!”) to help sell tickets. It never really ends. You have to become inescapable (bordering on insufferable) to have a chance of competing for the public’s eyes, ears and disposable income. Making decisions about your love life with a team of agents and managers is par for the course for someone at this level. One very controlled long-form podcast interview and an engagement announcement on Instagram might save her from the slog of album promo.
Can Taylor find creative inspiration in married life?
Asks Vox’s Aja Ramano:
Swift’s music empire is just that — an empire, dominated by her immense productivity and ability to turn her personal life into songwriting magic. Over the years, Swift has found her best creative inspiration from being bitterly disappointed in the men around her. Happiness, when it comes in the form of a stable romance, has not been known to summon her best work. Her all-Alwyn album, Lover, remains the best example, but while the two Kelce-coded songs on Tortured Poets are fine, they’re nothing to the delicious viciousness in that album’s songs about 1975 frontman Matty Healy.
So the inevitable next question is: What if? What if this is the move that manages to declaw Taylor more than any celeb scandal or intra-diva feud ever has? What if her getting the one thing her fans have always wanted for her — happiness — ironically causes her fandom to wane?
But what about the other teachers?
This is sort of good for the Christian institution of marriage
Ted Kluck offers an arms-length endorsement at the Christian magazine World:
Of course, we live in a fallen world where pagans live as pagans, and then also sometimes enter into an institution created by God, that is supposed to mirror Christ’s relationship with His bride. There’s a part of me that is really encouraged when a couple decides to stop living in sin, and decides to marry, even if that couple shows no evidence of regenerate hearts and not even a modicum of interest in the church. This is still a good thing, but not asgood, as joyful, as life-giving as going to a wedding between two of my students who love the Lord. It’s even less good when said marriage is less a holy union between two people and more a publicity-fueled marketing move. To be fair, I don’t know if it is this, or not.
The engagement was a mass missed connection for brands
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