"You and Me Got Big Reputations"
Taylor Swift, Travis Kelcie, and the whole damn thing
Unless you live under a rock (or don’t pay attention to American tabloid news), you know that Taylor Swift is apparently dating football player Travis Kelcie. It’s literally everywhere all the time, as someone who is both very online and very invested in Ms. Swift, even I’m experiencing some serious fatigue over this story. Why? Well, there are several reasons why, which I’ll get into more below, but the whole thing boils down to the fact that I don’t get why. I mean, I get why it works for him, his celebrity has grown exponentially since this whole circus started. But Taylor is literally one of the biggest celebrities in the world, why does she need to “date” a football player who’s not even a quarterback?
I’m aware that I’m an outlier for not being even a little excited about this pairing, but for once, I don’t care. So many of my friends have been posting on social media about the relationship, sharing that video of him being awed seeing her at his game for the first time, or admitting that they’ve always wanted this kind of relationship for him or how much they love him, and I can’t help but roll my eyes.
Admittedly, I hate football and football culture. I always have. I grew up in a house with parents who always watched football and it made me want to scoop my eyes out with a rusty spoon. So sorry Travis, this isn’t entirely personal. It also has nothing to do with my love for Taylor Swift, my belief that she’s queer, or the fact that I want her to wreck me like the Amazonian goddess she is. I’m also very aware that this is like a PR relationship, and there’s a huge chance that like some of Taylor’s other relationships, this will fizzle out quickly. I’ve already told my mom that I don’t think the relationship will last until the SuperBowl. Still, that doesn’t change the icky feeling I have over the whole thing.
Something about Travis Kelcie rubbed me the wrong way and then I realized what it was. His current hair and facial hair styling gives me the icks. It gives me big creepy white guy vibes. Maybe not “creepy” so much as “creep” if that makes more sense. Like, you know the kind of white guys who have that haircut and mustache. They may not be “bad” per se, but they’re also lowkey shitty or just not great. A few days ago, I pinpointed this feeling more precisely…he looks like my bestie’s shitty ex-husband. He’s that exact kind of white guy (except he is actually terrible) and surprise, surprise, he played high school football.
Travis has only recently acquired this haircut, which makes me wonder who told him that it was a good look.
The haircut/facial hair combo leads me into my next concern. Travis Kelcie has had a history of dating Black women in the past. In fact, from an article I read, all of his previous relationships in the last eight-ish years have been with women of color. Not to mention, one of his exes is famously putting him on blast for cheating, which doesn’t surprise me at all. Now obviously I’m not saying he can’t suddenly want to date a white woman, because that would be weird. But I think the timing is sus. Plus, of all the white women in the world, why did he decide to pick Taylor? Well because she’s the most famous, obviously. But I think it goes deeper than that.
Taylor Swift, whether it’s true or not, is often held up as a model for a certain kind of white womanhood. This view of her became the most pervasive during the 2016 election when she was noticeably silent and Trump made comments about her. Because she didn’t use her celebrity platform to speak in favor of a Democratic candidate, people assumed she was a crazy, right-wing conservative. It’s important to remember that the 2016 election happened during the time Kanye West and Kim Kardashian “exposed” her, and the whole internet was rejoicing that Taylor Swift was “canceled” while calling her a “snake.” Even if she had felt comfortable speaking up and encouraging her fans to vote blue, the public would have branded her an opportunist and not taken her seriously.
I do believe that Taylor has white feminist tendencies, but sorry to say it, every white woman does. That’s what makes her an appealing match for Travis Kelcie. He aligns himself with the “right” kind of white woman to move past his previous persona of a man who doesn’t date white women, and he elevates his public persona and status. Plus the NFL wins because now the white women who love Taylor Swift are suddenly interested in watching Kansas City games with their white guy husbands who know and care about Travis Kelcie.
There’s an inequity of power in this relationship; Taylor Swift is a superstar, and Travis Kelcie is a football player who no one is going to remember or care about by the end of the season. This is especially true if Kansas City doesn’t make it to the SuperBowl again this year. The timing of this “relationship” is also very important to be aware of. Travis is still riding the popularity wave that came with Kansas City’s SuperBowl win this year. The season has only recently started, so that’s still top of mind for diehard and casual football fans alike.
It’s no secret that the NFL has been on the decline for years for a myriad of reasons. So it’s advantageous for them to have one of their most popular players align himself with the world’s biggest crossover superstar. Taylor may be polarizing, but she’s working with a much larger pool of worshippers than your average WAG is.
What is a WAG, you ask? WAG stands for “wives and girlfriends,” a fact I learned several years ago courtesy of Say Yes to the Dress. WAGs is a term exclusive to athletes, but not to one specific sport. There are football WAGs who are already famous in their own right like singer Ciara, singer/actress Hailee Steinfeld, and gymnast Simone Biles. Kansas City has one of the most famous non-celebrity WAGs, Brittany Mahomes, wife of QB Patrick Mahomes. Everything I know about these two is against my will because I have to write about her frequently for my content writing job. KC fans either love Brittany, or love to hate her. There is already a bit of a rivalry happening between her fans and the Swifties, with the KCC Queen crown on the 40 yard line. Taylor included Brittany in her latest GNO, which means it’s only a matter of time before the tabloid media starts to pit the two of them together.
Brittany Mahomes has been criticized for giving up her autonomy as a former soccer player to basically become her husband’s biggest fan. She’s there most games, their two toddlers in tow in her game day colors. I’m not saying that she’s wrong for being a supportive wife, but it’s only a matter of time before the public expects Taylor to do the same, showing up with red and white cookies in the sky lounge and Travis’s number emblazoned across her chest or back. She is a multimillionaire, why should she be reduced to the role of high school cheerleader girlfriend to her BMOC jock boyfriend?
The white male toxic masculinity of football culture is already coming for Taylor, and she’s only shown up to two games. Already there’s a clip circulating on Twitter of a white male radio host saying “If Taylor Swift is going to be taking over our Sunday’s I’m going to need to see a sex tape.” Even if they’re the only ones saying it out loud, that doesn’t mean they’re the only ones thinking it. And that’s the problem.
After a lot of thinking, my biggest issue with the Taylor/Travis relationship is the messaging of it all. Starting this summer, Travis Kelcie decided that he was going to get Taylor Swift on his arm come hell or high water. It started with him apparently making her a friendship bracelet with his number on it and showing up at her concert. “I was disappointed that she doesn’t talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice for the 44 songs that she sings, so I was a little butthurt I didn’t get to hand her one of the bracelets I made for her,” he said.
Even though her team made clear that she was not interested in him or dating him, the stories didn’t stop. Suddenly, Travis is all over the place talking about how he’s going to date Taylor Swift, despite her team’s protestations. It became a topic of conversation for his brother even, who continued to bait the media with his own game of playing coy. Still, Taylor stayed focused on finishing her tour and hanging out with her besties.
That’s why it was so jarring to suddenly see her at a Kansas City game next to Travis’s mom. I feel like I actually did a double take. What the hell was she doing there after very publicly saying “no thanks, I’m not interested,”? More importantly, what kind of messaging does it send that he “finally” wore her down and she went to his game?
Her agreement to show up, whether it’s for publicity or if she actually likes him, creates a dangerous message. It tells men that if they don’t take no for an answer, they can just keep asking and eventually she will change her mind. I’m sure that there will be plenty more white men who will try to bully and harass women into dating them simply because Travis Kelcie talked enough about Taylor Swift that he wore her down and now she’s dating him. (This badgering women into dating him seems to be a pattern.) But unlike Taylor Swift, many of those women will not have the autonomy or the means to tell those men to get fucked. There will likely be dire consequences, and most of us will never hear about them. For someone who has always been open about how it feels to be objectified by men, Taylor seems to have forgotten all about that for the sake of this media circus.
Look, obviously Taylor Swift is a grown ass woman and can do whatever she wants. All I’m saying is that, there are some things to consider about how we are reacting to the whole thing.