Engagement! And Every Application of the Word!

Travis knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said, (key change) marry me, Juliet (Taylor!)

Welcome to Fanbase! A newsletter covering sports, pop culture, and the internet, written by a professional with nearly a decade of experience working across all the above, who also happens to be a lifelong fan.

Now that the dust has settled and the first round of #takes have hit the Internet and beyond…I am calm enough to weigh in. You can skip this newsletter if your feeds are oversaturated with Tayvis #content. My biggest insight is that we have never experienced something so Fanbase coded - in a way that this moment became a perfect intersection of sports, pop culture, and the Internet. We’re in the center of the Venn diagram, baby! Come on in!

The Sports Section

I’m going to start by breaking down the engagement through a sports lens. First of all, Taylor referred to¹ Travis Kelce as a “gym teacher” in the caption. While I find it questionable that Travis has the reading comprehension necessary to become an educator, that’s where I’m starting, with the literal sports of it all. The engagement post was strategically dropped on the Tuesday of the week before the NFL season starts. The Chiefs open their season next FRIDAY (WEIRD!!! Friday football is for college!!!) in São Paulo, Brazil, so this is plenty of runway to get us to opening kickoff.²

So many teams and leagues and brands decided to post on social media about this engagement for…engagement! And it’s all working. The fact that the National Football League posted about Taylor Swift getting engaged, that ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter shared the news, The Newsroom style, is still mind boggling to many, including me!

There was also (coincidentally…) a deep dive article on Travis Kelce’s purported last season³ on ESPN.com posted on Monday of this week, priming us for yet another season of Taylor in the Kelce family box and kissing on the field. I know this doesn’t bear repeating, but DEAR GOD, we cannot allow the Chiefs to make it to the Super Bowl this year. For one thing: there’s only one NFL team who made it to four consecutive Super Bowls…and they play in a little place called Orchard Park, New York…and THEIR MVP quarterback got married in the offseason.⁴ You see what I’m saying? The Chiefs can’t take ANOTHER thing from the Bills.

Other thoughts…I think the “NFL is scripted” theorists are going to be foaming at the mouth if the Chiefs have another season where they win like, 11 games in increasingly unbelievable ways: a toe out of bounds, blocked field goals, last second field goals, the Raiders being the Raiders, etc. We all know it is in the NFL’s best interest if the Chiefs win, so throw those tin foil hats on, if you feel compelled.

In summation: it’s wild and unprecedented (sorry to use that word!) that this celebrity engagement turned into a very real sports event.

Pop of Culture

The term I saw thrown around most in regards to Taylor and Travis’s engagement was “royal wedding.” The US has never had a “royal wedding” because, well, we don’t have a royal family⁵, and Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce getting married will become the closest thing we have to a royal wedding.

I agree with this idea in the sense of its magnitude and reach - and I’d argue it has the potential to be BIGGER than either of the last two royal weddings (no offense Prince William and Kate Middleton, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle) but there’s no way it can be as big as Diana and Charles’ wedding. Nothing could compare! Taylor wants to be the People’s Princess, but we already had one!

I also find it fascinating that this engagement announcement came very shortly after the album The Life of a Showgirl was dropped on the New Heights podcast. Taylor getting engaged during an album rollout, Travis getting engaged right before football season…(sports take voice) is this going to be a distraction for both of them in their respective industries? Or will this amplify both of them? Is it all just PR? (Yes, always!)

Taylor Swift has had so many eras that now evoke a certain time and place…think back to the days of Joe Alwyn, 2020, lockdown, folklore. Or the 1989 Tour, “Please welcome to the stage…” 4th of July with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, summer of 2015! Even the Eras Tour era, which is about to be chronicled in The Life of a Showgirl - summer 2023, Matty Healy, surprise songs, friendship bracelets - she is a worldwide phenomenon, has been for a decade plus, and culture continues to defines the passage of time through her life. Whew!

I’m Too Online

We are days removed since this happened, and people are still making jokes on the Internet about it. There was even a new episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty immediately after the photos dropped, but Taylor reactions and thinkpieces and TikTok commentaries are still dominating my scroll.

I’ve seen a couple videos pop up of different bridal shops showing off dresses for each of Taylor’s eras, in honor of the engagement - which got me thinking, the Tayvis wedding industrial complex is going to be something we have never seen before. In an age of trad wives and panic over birth rates and women’s rights being stripped from us - for someone as famous as Taylor Swift to be doing something so traditional - getting married⁶ - I wonder what the socioeconomic impact is going to be. Because there IS going to be one! Taylor Swift is an influencer and a trend setter in every sense - she sways enormous swaths of the money-spending public…just ask the NFL, who has reportedly brought in ONE BILLION DOLLARS since Taylor and Travis started dating in 2023!

I also wonder what this means for the future of Taylor as an artist and a performer. She has a new album coming out, and we have to assume, a new tour will follow. We know she feels compelled to write music and almost can’t stop. She simultaneously loves and hates touring. She’s supposed to direct a full length feature film! However - we know she has the ability to step away from the spotlight (although we know much of that seclusion was because of the pandemic, but was also fueled by her ex, Joe Alwyn). We know Travis wants kids. Taylor’s waffled on this - but I could see it happening (now we are entering into wild speculation territory) considering the big ol’ Kelce family. As I pondered in the last Fanbase - I’ll be curious to see Taylor’s next rounds of creative peaks and valleys, however she chooses to spend her life.

Taylor Swift is still Taylor Swift, she just now has an engagement ring the size of a small planet on her finger. And she is also always going to inspire people to write/tweet/post videos/fight in the comments section/light up the entire Internet!

Final Thoughts

The ring is ugly. Sorry! I’m not a fan of these Gilded Age gaudy ass HUGE infinity stone rings! Cristiano Ronaldo just proposed, and his fianceé Georgina Rodriguez’s ring is bigger and uglier than Taylor’s. Does extreme wealth erode all sense of taste, like The Other Two prophecized? I think so.

I think this is everything I wanted to say. I mainly just want the Bills to win the Super Bowl. I am happy for my close personal friend and fellow daughter of Wyomissing, PA Taylor Swift. Do I need to bring back the Taylor Swift Sports Pain Index (SPI) for this season? It kinda backfired last year, until the Super Bowl. Much to ponder…

1. I assume she wrote the copy. She showed him right before she was about to post, and he probably nodded and said something like, “Looks sick, babe.”

2. Opening kickoff of the NFL regular season is next Thursday night, when the Cowboys play the Eagles and the Eagles get to remind us that they won the Super Bowl.

3. His 13th season, mind you…Taylor Swift’s birthday is December 13th…13 is a very important number to her. The next college course taught about Taylor Swift should be about her use of/obsession with numerology.

4. Is it silly that I’m a little annoyed on Josh and Hailee’s behalf? Like, it probably was going to be annoying that every game, their marriage will now get mentioned - but it’ll now be mentioned in the same breath as, “AND SOMEONE ELSE IS GETTING MARRIED, TOO!” It would have been nice for Josh and Hailee to get a little more uninterrupted shine. But there is one way to still do that: win the goddamn Super Bowl.

5. And real heads know, they’ll never be another Camelot.

6. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with getting married! Everyone should have that choice! I love my friends and family who have gotten married and are planning to get married. I love weddings. But we can be critical of things that we love, especially in the context of the patriarchy!