Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged and, culturally speaking, there is simply no bigger news. Swift’s post on Instagram — five photos, including one of Kelce bent on one knee in front of white and pink potted flowers and an arch — was liked 5 million times in just 40 minutes. Details about her ring, a brilliant-cut old mine diamond, set in yellow gold with filigree engraving, spread rapidly. Most every media outlet, from ESPN to NBC News, pushed out notifications and published reaction pieces on the newly minted fiancés. Hell, even President Donald Trump, who for the past few years has been vocally critical of Swift, offered luck to the couple.
Even President Donald Trump, who for the past few years has been vocally critical of Swift, offered luck to the couple.
This all tells me, for one thing, just how badly we’re craving a cultural touchstone of this magnitude — something, anything, to bring us common ground. There is more here, though.
Swifties, notoriously conspiratorial about Swift’s next move and defensive of their leader, are celebrating. One posted, “Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce [are] the American Royal Wedding.” Some Swifties were crying, others were screaming, but mostly they were deeply sentimental, posting things like, “Taylor is one of the reasons I continue to be a hopeless romantic and believe in happy ever afters so to see someone who has struggled to find love her entire life finally being cherished and cared for makes me very happy. I wish them all the best.”
Conservative pundit and Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro shared on X: “This is unironically an excellent thing. I hope many other single people follow their example.”
“Congrats to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. We are MASSIVE fans,” former NFL star turned conservative commentator Pat McAfee wrote on same the platform.
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.








