Breaking news: the couple that once electively attended a public event while chained to one another via fingernail has announced their engagement.
It shouldn’t come as a shock that Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly—the celebrity couple who has, thus far, dedicated the entirety of their relationship to providing representation for goth kids who make out in the library of your high school—is taking their love to the next level. (Although, I’m hard-pressed to believe that there’s a relationship status more definitive than, oh, I don’t know, sacrificing each other’s souls to Lucifer?) Ever since Megan and MGK met on the set of Lala Kent’s former sugar daddy’s film, Midnight in the Switchgrass, they’ve been exhibiting public displays of affection with a level of intensity that gives National Geographic’s mating mammals a true run for their money. But over the next few days, as you find yourself faced with a notification queue of clickbait-y headlines begging you to peek at the ginormous ring or read a vague statement a “source” provided about the pair’s upcoming wedding plans, I regret to inform you that this is the one celebrity engagement you must pay attention to. Bear with me.
Megan announced the news in a January 12 Instagram post, with a caption that I have read dozens of times, and have yet to detect whether it consists of My Chemical Romance lyrics, or a combination of words she wrote herself. Alongside a video of MGK in his best Beetlejuice cosplay, Megan gave us plebes a glimpse into their love story, which she maintains began when the pair sat under a tree and “asked for magic” in 2020.
“We were oblivious to the pain we would face together in such a short, frenetic period of time. Unaware of the work and sacrifices the relationship would require from us but intoxicated off of the love and the karma,” the post reads. “Somehow a year and a half later, having walked through hell together, and having laughed more than I ever imagined possible, he asked me to marry him. And just as in every lifetime before this one, and as in every lifetime that will follow it, I said yes.”
Good ol’ Meg finished off the heartfelt caption with a tongue-in-cheek detail (and by tongue-in-cheek, even I’m unsure if I’m referring to the fact that she’s just playin’, or that Colson Baker’s once-painted-black tongue is inside of her damn mouth more often than not): “and then we drank each other’s blood.”
Well, okay then! I feel as though this is a convenient moment to point out that she does not even follow this man on Instagram.
MGK followed up with a post of his own, in which he claimed that although “tradition is one ring,” he designed the piece of jewelry (that probably classifies as more of a planet than Pluto) with the intention of creating two rings. (Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I only see one ring? The girls that get it, get it, and I clearly do not.) Hot Topic’s answer to the Bachelor franchise then explained that Megan’s ring consists of their birthstones “set on two magnetic bands of thorns.” To which I say: how convenient that his birthstone is a fucking diamond. If Zales ever catches wind of the notion that they may be able to convince men born in April to buy women diamonds because it’s personally meaningful, we will never hear the end of it.
While Megan’s caption is not too far out of the realm of the type of posts women post on their anniversaries—“Marriage is so hard! I hate this man! Here’s a photo from our wedding three years ago that I will be adding a blogger preset to, against my photographer’s wishes, to remind you all that I’ve survived another year of marital bliss”—I do believe that it’s setting a very dangerous precedent for engagement announcements. (And in the height of engagement season, no less!) As a generation that has rested comfortably on the laurels of captions including but not limited to, “I SAID YES,” and “Soo, this happened,” I think it would be morally irresponsible for us to turn a blind eye to this fuckery. We are simply not ready for the ramifications that this celebrity engagement may cause.
At the core of both Megan and MGK’s posts is a common theme that I truly believe the soon-to-be engaged people of our society will flock to. These two believe that they have a love that transcends this dimension. Megan basically said that in this lifetime, and in all of the lifetimes that have predated it and that will follow, it was her destiny to… marry a man who has several rows of bricks and an anarchy symbol tattooed across his abdomen? Lmao, okay girl. This kind of behavior is fine for a celebrity couple that I will likely never interact with in my waking life, but I am deeply worried about how it will translate for the Kaylas and Jasons of the world. Everyday couples who met at frat parties, on dating apps, or at work happy hours will soon start walking around with the air that they are the first to ever do it. (And by “it,” I guess that I just mean get married at a ballroom venue with five passed hors d’oeuvres and a DJ who will play a minimum of three Ed Sheeran songs.)
Do you know what happens when an engaged couple starts to think that they’re built differently? They stop playing by the rules. They do shit like expect you to show up to a destination wedding without the bare-minimum courtesy of reserving a block of hotel rooms for their guests. They send along invitations with detailed and unrealistic attire guidelines. They exploit the poor souls who have accepted the thankless role of serving in their wedding parties. Nobody wins when an engaged couple decides to throw it all out the window.
I urge you to stay vigilant in these coming weeks, as we seek to understand just how deeply Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly have impacted engaged couples across the world. Take note the next time you see someone who abandons their usual practice of sharing captions along the lines of “I did a thing,” and “I’m feeling 22,” to announce an engagement with a collection of sentences that instead sound like the narration of an opening scene of a Tim Burton movie. We may very well be entering yet another unprecedented time.
Images: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for iHeartMedia; Giphy
