We have to talk about Taylor and Travis.
Swifties and football fans were never meant to intersect.
Nightmare blunt rotation: Swifties + die hard football fans.
This has nothing to do with them personally and everything to do with their fandoms. These are two incredibly passionate fanbases that were never meant to intersect.
Analyzing the fans.
Taylor Swift has cultivated her wildly successful fandom over the years through strategically controlling her narrative. She very intentionally and carefully chooses to which bits and pieces of her personal life to reveal. If Taylor Swift wants the world to know something, she will coyly share it in some sort of Easter egg (i.e., a riddle, a word change in a lyric, a literal math equation that somehow incorporates the number 13). This strategy makes her fans go full Nancy Drew trying to figure out what these hints could mean. From choreography to color choice, every detail is intentionally thought through when it comes to T Swift.
On the other end of the spectrum, the NFL’s fanbase expects three key elements from football: spectacle, brute force, and tradition. This is quite literally the opposite of what a Swiftie expects from Taylor. Where Taylor communicates through Easter eggs, the NFL has press conferences, sideline interviews, players who are mic’d up during the games, etc. The amount of publicity and exposure football players receive is astronomical.
Let’s double-click on Travis Kelce specifically. Some football players choose to shy away from the limelight off the field, but not Travis. He has certainly capitalized on his star power, by having his own dating show, a successful podcast, a documentary about his family, and more.
Check on your local Swifites.
Where Taylor has historically been very private with her dating life, Travis has been the opposite. Taylor’s past boyfriends have made very few comments about her publicly while dating (NDA perhaps?), and Travis has already made multiple comments about dating Tay Tay on his podcast. This is a shock to the system for the Swifties!
Many Taylor Swift fans are thrilled about her dating someone who is successful and famous on their own accord, rather than someone who can’t handle her level of stardom (**cough cough, Joe Alwyn**). To ground you in what a stark contrast this is from her previous relationships, we’ve seen more couple-y photos of Taylor and Travis together in the past month than we’ve seen of her with almost any boyfriend ever. There are no Easter eggs needed here, so needless to say the Swifties are spiraling.
The tipping point.
Everything came to a head last night at the New York Jets vs. Kansas City Chiefs game in New Jersey. When Taylor went to the last Chiefs game, it was a surprise to the public. This time around, it was known that Taylor would be attending this game and it truly solidified her and Travis as a couple.
This led to Swifties everywhere tuning into the game solely to see Taylor, and it also led to an outrage of football fans who viewed Taylor’s attendance as nothing more than a spectacle getting in the way of the game.
My fiancé is a lifelong Jets fan (yes, feel sad for him), so the game was on in our home last night. Here are my takeaways:
I was shocked by the amount of Taylor Swift references throughout the game. The announcers even kicked off the game by saying, “Hi Swifties, we’ll be with you all night.”
They showed Taylor with her famous friends (Blake Lively, Sophie Turner, Sabrina Carpenter, Hugh Jackman, etc.) a zillion times.
That game went on entirely too long.
The Chiefs ended up winning the game 23-20. Because Taylor’s presence was so widely known, Jets fans felt like the game was being unfairly called by the referees in favor of the Chiefs. I have mixed feelings about this:
On the one hand from an entertainment perspective, it is obviously much more fun to watch a blossoming love story like this one when Travis’s team wins.
On the other hand, being a referee seems like the worst job in the world - no one likes the refs no matter what. So why would they start caring about being liked now and make a bad call?
Thinking of you, Tay Tay.
Unfortunately, it is very common for men to blame innocent women for their own problems. My hot take is that the fans of any team who lose to the Chiefs in the next few weeks will blame the loss on Taylor Swift, and I bet that if the Chiefs lose any games in this timeframe Taylor will be blamed for that, too.
With two incredibly passionate fan bases, I do fear a war between the Swifties and football fans. But no worries, this will be great promotion of the inevitable release of Reputation (Taylor’s Version).