Hannah Chen, a 28-year-old Madewell floor manager, made her fiancè Matt’s day when she suggested they swap out their Sunday afternoon Target & Starbucks run for the Kansas City Chiefs’ game. He thought that she was taking their couples’ counseling to heart and making an effort to participate in his interests, but he was wrong: All she wanted was a glimpse of Taylor Swift supporting her PR “boyfriend” Travis Kelce.
“The NFL might be a multi-billion dollar industry, but Taylor transcends all earthly constructs,” Hannah tells me, while Matt screams through his bluetooth headset at an 11-year-old kicking his ass in FIFA. “Most of the actual football is boring, but if it means I get to feel spiritually closer to Taylor, watching the same game at the same time, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
Matt, on the other hand, is just glad he doesn’t have to spend his weekend offering a “that looks nice” every time Hannah shows him another heinous throw pillow from the clearance rack.
Taylor’s three appearances at Travis’s most recent games have received excessive coverage throughout each broadcast, as the NFL apparently seeks to capitalize on its newfound audience.
“Look, the more eyeballs on our screens means the more we can charge for Old Spice commercials,” says Dean Corcoran, the NFL’s Vice President of Marketing. “If showing more shots of Taylor and her plate of chicken tenders finances my winter home in Boca, what do I care?”
Diehard football fans don’t exactly share his sentiment.
“These Swifties are a dangerous cult, like if the Mansons dealt in glitter instead of murder, and we don’t need them infecting the beautiful game with their friendship bracelets and overall zest for life,” said 34-year-old Jeff Connelly, a Dorchester, MA resident donning a signed Tom Brady jersey, who answered my questions sporadically in between updates to his fantasy football lineup.
“I 1000% agree with Jeff — he’s like a brother to me,” chimes in 31-year-old Kaylee Stevens. “Football is for the guys and the guys’ girls. All of these culty Swifties drinking their vodka crans and giggling about a pop star is so cringe. Like, if you aren’t shotgunning a Coors and betting Kyle that you can totally crush more wings than him, why are you even here? Oh my gosh, Marco, stop it! I’m trying to do a serious interview! Fight me!”
To determine if there was any credence to their statements, I reached out to Professor Deborah Clark, a psychology professor at Columbia University and author of the New York Times bestseller Should I Become A Scientologist To Fuck Tom Cruise?
When I asked Professor Clark if Swifties are in fact cult-adjacent, her answer was illuminating: “Any organization that has the power and organizational skills needed to work as a collective and ruin Jake Gyllenhal’s life should definitely be considered suspicious for cult activity.”
In the weeks after my initial interview with Hannah and Matt, Hannah informed me that she had broken off her engagement. According to her, the combined forces of the Barbie movie and Taylor Swift’s Eras created a storm of cultural contempt that their bond wasn’t strong enough to weather.
“He can’t comprehend that Taylor Swift is more famous than Travis Kelce. Like, she’s doing him a favor with all this press,” Hannah sighs over iced matcha lattes. “Anway, I tried to do one of those ‘telling my boyfriend that Taylor Swift put Travis Kelce on the map’ TikToks, and it ended up totally obliterating our relationship.”
I reached out to Matt multiple times, but he could not be made available for comment. From his social media posts, however, it appears he is “doing really well” and following the TB12 Method like his personal Bible. I’ve never seen a man eat so many seeds.
