Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s Engagement Rollout Was a Master Class
This is an edition of the newsletter Pulling Weeds With Chris Black, in which the columnist weighs in on hot topics in culture. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Thursday.
Yesterday I landed in Kansas City for the first time in my life. I was in town for twenty-four hours for a shoot, but the first order of business was a mad dash to the Crossroads Hotel to record an episode of our podcast How Long Gone with Belgian DJ legends Soulwax. As soon as the mics went down, I checked my phone and saw an alert letting me know that America’s sweetheart, Taylor Swift, was engaged to Kansas City Chiefs tight end (and fellow podcaster) Travis Kelce. It was a sign that I should finally write about the world’s most talked-about couple.
The engagement was announced in an Instagram post (of course) featuring the duo embracing, both smiling, their foreheads and noses touching, her pop-star hands cradling his chiseled jaw. Kelce was wearing khaki shorts; Swift was wearing a simple Ralph Lauren dress, her massive new ring, and what I’m told is a Cartier Santos Demoisielle. As far as celebrity engagement photos go, it’s pretty inoffensive if not run of the mill. The caption read, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.” I’m giving this joke a 5/10—a valiant effort, low risk, just a pinch of silly, relatable to mothers of three who’ve never left their hometowns. After the announcement, “So High School,” the Tortured Poets Department song Swift supposedly wrote about sighing over Kelce (“You know how to ball/I know Aristotle”) immediately re-entered the Spotify charts at #68.
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-cuttthroat 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.
The Life of a Showgirl may not end up being my cup of SwifTea, but it was produced by Max Martin and Shellback, certified Swedish hitmakers from a different era—who some would consider the opposite of her most successful collaborator in recent years, New Jersey’s own Jack Antonoff. The title track reportedly has a Sabrina Carpenter feature (a timely, safe choice), and the album cover—shot by the English fashion photographers Mert and Marcus, and seemingly inspired by a photo the duo took of Kate Moss for the cover of Love Magazine in 2013—feels a little sexier and more grown-up than usual. Timing her engagement with the album makes Swift feel relatable to her core audience; she is an absolute master of the she’s-just-like-us move, and this feels like the final frontier. I will, of course, continue to get my jokes off, but I have to tip my hat to Swift and Kelce; if being famous were the Super Bowl, they would be going to the honeymoon suite with the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
