The media reacts to the internet reacting to Taylor Swift reacting to Travis Kelce proposing to her
Yesterday, Taylor Swift announced she was engaged to Travis Kelce (if you are somehow finding out about this for the first time from Nieman Lab Dot Org, please reassess your media diet). If anything else happened yesterday, well, no it didn’t. “If you have some news you need to get buried, now is the time to leak it,” wrote my former Vox colleague Zack Beauchamp.
When I worked at Audubon magazine, we had a saying: every story is a bird story. In other words, you can write about anything as long as you find a bird connection, no matter how tenuous. Yesterday, every story was a Taylor story, and watching how publishers found ways into the story (and ways to incorporate song lyrics into headlines) became something of a spectator sport. We are not, of course, immune. This is our contribution to the oeuvre.
It was a rare moment of cultural alignment in an age of fractured internet. Sophie, our resident Swiftie, says that’s because Swift is an “attention unicorn” — that mythical creature which can, with a single Instagram post, draw all our gazes through the dark forest of the internet. The S in SEO, it seems, stands for Swift.
“I’m biased, but I have trouble coming up with another single figure who can attract so many eyeballs so quickly (across generations and nationalities, and now, with the NFL crossover, more so across gender than before),” Sophie told me. “For fans, she projects an accessibility that lends itself to a parasocial relationship while being fundamentally inaccessible in a way that encourages reactions ranging from fascination to idolatry. That’s a potent combination for attracting attention, even before you get to the extremely high-profile romance! The Travis Kelce narrative is too good to resist — Miss Americana and the boy on the football team — as accessible, or more, as any fairy tale.”
And, she added, “I think there’s a hunger for fluffy, happy news that distracts us from the abyss of everything else. Eras played that same role. Maybe more important, the entire attention ecosystem learned what a goldmine Taylor had become during Eras, and everyone — brands, individuals, media companies — fed the beast to cash in, making her even more omnipresent. She’s still a mirrorball, and we still can’t look away.”
An incomplete roundup of engagement engagement:
The Athletic’s story — with its five-author byline — included a “How does this impact the Chiefs?” section. “Just want to thank the sports world for breaking this story so quickly that I got to break it to my wife,” wrote one commenter. “Major husband points.”
ESPN, of course, also had to get in on the NFL news angle.
The Verge analyzed which platforms won and lost the engagement announcement.
An @afm-union.bsky.social and @sagaftra.org gal.
An NFLPA guy.
We love a union love story. Congrats Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce!
— AFL-CIO (@aflcio.org) August 26, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Insane localization work here from @freep pic.twitter.com/rt2KdpjLHs
— Lily Catherine Guiney (@LilyCGuiney) August 26, 2025
Bryan West, Gannett’s dedicated Taylor Swift reporter, has been on a publishing spree. As of 2 p.m. on August 27, his author page featured ten stories (some of which are practically duplicates) about the engagement.
I have received confirmation from … the NFL twitter account … that Taylor Swift is engaged
— Dave Jorgenson (@davejorgenson.bsky.social) August 26, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Politico found the Trump angle.
The Washington Post asked if Kelce got down on the wrong knee and wrote about how the engagement played out on prediction markets.
The New York Times gave the announcement the Style treatment, with breakdowns of the ring and what Swift and Kelce were wearing.
The Guardian wrote about how the announcement “broke the internet.”
Today Taylor Swift accomplished something no AI researcher ever could (made an announcement without posting on X)
— Casey Newton (@caseynewton.bsky.social) August 26, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Taylor Swift Hints New Album Could Be About Her https://theonion.com/taylor-swift-hints-new-album-could-be-about-her/
— The Onion (@theonion.com) August 26, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Nick Quah with an incredible take: “Cities Should Compete for the Swift-Kelce Wedding.”
And, finally, Awful Announcing: “NFL podcast host announces engagement to recent guest.”