The Swifties Descend Upon Us
Frankly it’s absurd to me that Taylor Swift possibly dating Travis Kelce became such a massive thing. But, I guess that’s what happens when you don’t pay attention to popular music. Gun to my head I could probably name like, 4 Swift songs. She never did anything for me from what I have heard and I haven’t engaged with popular music at all since I discovered my Dad’s classic rock CDs in early high school. The current age of streaming and algorithms makes it remarkably easy to isolate yourself in a pit of what you prefer and ignore everything else. Any pop song that makes it to me is through sheer cultural osmosis and I normally find it years after it had its moment. I discovered “Pumped Up Kicks” like 3 years after it came out and my wife laughed at me when I told her I found a new song I liked. So I knew Swift was really popular, but I had no fucking idea.
Social media was inundated with the Swifties going bananas over this Kelce fella. Looking up his history, learning about who he was, and even going in depth about his astrological signs to see if he and Taylor are a match. Celebrity Stan culture is…alarming. It’s also probably a lot of terminally online people like most alarming sections of fandoms, so while it weirds me out, whatever. I’m not here to gatekeep. Frankly I saw a lot of football fans gatekeeping the Swifties and I think that’s just shitty. Yeah, It can be a little annoying when a newbie who knows nothing barges into a room and starts asking questions but there’s no reason to shit on the football ignorant Swifties for not understanding the sport. Like me and pop music, they’ve simply never had a reason to engage with it, so they didn’t until now.
I want to focus on the positives. With how stupidly popular Swift is there is a non-zero chance that this entire thing actually generates, at minimum, one new football fan. And I think that’s beautiful. We all start somewhere, and if someone discovers the joy of football because their favorite artist dated a talented and kind of annoying tight end, well good for them. That’s neat. That’s more interesting an origin story than most of us, who follow our teams because we inherited the fandom from family (like me) or just lived in a region and saw the team on TV a lot and got into it when they were winning. So Swifties, I welcome you to football. It is a stupid, silly game, but it is full of drama, action, controversy, and excitement. Ask me any questions you want. Following Kelce is a good start, and I think one of the best ways to get into the sport is to learn the stories of many different players so you can have an emotional investment. Don’t start trying to learn strategies or film study, that stuff is for those of us already in too deep.
The media coverage can kiss my ass though. I am not looking forward to this monstrosity on nonsense continuing for the foreseeable future. This is hopefully the only comic I have to make about all this, unless Taylor dumps Kelce in a funny way down the road.
MY DEFINITE LIST OF TAYLOR SWIFT SONGS THAT I CAN REMEMBER OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD
-The one where she says Starbucks Lovers. This is also the only Swift song I can remember genuinely liking.
-The new one where she says I’m the problem it’s me
-Shake it Off
-Look What You Made Me Do
-The one that got meme-edited with that goat screaming. Trouble? I think?
-Look I know I’ve heard more but when you aren’t interested in actually retaining the information it’s difficult okay?
-WAIT…she did a song called Bad Blood, right? I think I remember hating that one
But think of those lucky handfuls of guys who will now get to live the dream of that lawyer on The League! The one who ends up with the smoking hot wife who kicks his butt at fantasy BUT WHO CARES?!!
You and I are about the same age, so I’m surprised you don’t remember her early career- I could name (or hum) four of her songs, but they’re also probably her first four hits. I was in college when she broke out, and so I heard it just through girlfriends
I knew her when she was a country singer who would pop up on my dad’s radio station and then she transitioned into pop music and I literally have only heard Shake It Off because it was inescapable a decade ago.
I remember hearing her name in college but thats about it, by college I was deep in a pit of british electronic house or classic rock and when I went to parties the only thing anyone ever played was Lady Gaga
When the inevitable break-up does happen (which, let’s be honest with her track record, it will happen), that fanbases’ occult sect would more than likely curse the Chiefs into never winning ever again. They will somehow redact the Chiefs’ existence, leaving only salted earth where Arrowhead once stood.
it’s a celebrity couple, of course it’ll end; the only question is how badly
I’m sure the NFL will be fine when she leaves
I’d be fine with this. Please let this happen, Swifties.
Why listen to Taylor Swift when you have Motörhead?
This guy gets it.
OOH, good call. Time to go spin up SACRIFICE!
I’m just waiting for their inevitable breakup so I can observe the nuclear war that will occur between Swifties and Chiefs Kingdom on Twitter as a result.
That’s going to be an annihilation of the Chiefs
The only people who ever stood a chance against Swifties were Tool fans, and that’s because Tool’s fanbase is a special breed of cringey awfulness.
the beyhive would give the swifties a fair fight
If you think the surface level celebrity stan culture is alarming, then you’d love the “Gaylor” subculture, that believes that Taylor is closeted gay and has been dropping breadcrumbs throughout her songs about it. Absolutely wild.
Wait what
I’m just disappointed she didn’t sit in the bleachers… you know, for synergy with that one 15 year old song of hers I’m familiar with because it got a fairly prescient Weird Al parody way back when.
As a middle aged suburban dad I learn about new pop songs the way God intended it — from Nissan ads.
For months I’ve been trying to think of a precise sniglet* for a similar phenomenon, those songs that you have no idea whom they’re by that if you’ve been in a supermarket, Target or similar retail establishment more than once in the last month you’ve been forced against your will to know by heart. Like the “I can put my high heels on, I can wear my LOOOOOOOUIIIEEE VIT_OOOOOOOONNNS” song.
Another similar situation is the songs you’ve been subjected to if you live with people that are on TikTok constantly that every snippet in a same theme has. Like every exercise TikTok with the song I always mishear as “Work that Body Aziz Ojulari”**
* You remember Sniglets, the thing that guy from Not Necessarily The News did, right?
** I was half tempted to name my Fantasy Team this.
It really is nuts how much ink gets spilled when Taylor Swift gets seen doing something. The 5pm news had a segment the next day with the headline, Taylor Swift Attendees Chiefs Game. I do hope it results in more football fans too!
This reminds me of back in ’78 when Debbie Harry was at Three Rivers because she was rumored to be dating Jack Lambert.
*may not have actually happened, just in my fan fic.
At least Travis Kelce is somewhat handsome, Jack Lambert looks like one of the Jupiters from The Hills Have Eyes. I cannot see this at all.
Based on Joey Ramone maybe bad looks weren’t that much of dealbreaker for her?
Maybe.
Only song of hers I know any bit of is the “got nothing in my brain” because it’s on tik tok videos my wife likes to send to me. I truly don’t understand why she’s so popular, but it doesn’t really matter. The NFL probably loves this since its getting loads of new eyeballs on the product. I’ll bet they’re hoping it lasts long enough for them to cash in on the breast cancer awareness merch. I’m curious to see how much money this actually ends up generating. Guess we’ll see soon enough.
I would petition Taylor Swift to take receivership of the Bears franchise when the McCaskey’s plane crashes into Lameblow Field.
The best part of Shake It Off is how perfectly it mashes up with NIN’s Perfect Drug.
goddamn it, dave. I pulled up the DP this morning to ESCAPE all the ‘Traylor’ crap on the pregame shows…
In the immortal words of Jay Cutler: “DON’T. CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE….”
as a Chiefs fan, I’m just worried that this’ll screw with play selection as “we have to get Travis the ball in front of his girlfriend”…
I’m a Swifty and also a huge Kelse fan, so I find this whole situation incredibly amusing. Also, I might be stealing the brunette gal as an avatar in the future.