Why I'm Cheering For The Popular Kids (Extended Distillation)

Caveat: Not an NFL fan and wouldn’t consider myself a Swiftie but, if you think the NFL rigged an entire season I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

You’re not going to convince me that the saga playing out with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce isn’t something out of a Disney movie… before things got weird and unwatchable.

I’ll be the first to say it was fun to dunk on Taylor’s love life up until this point.

When she released her last album my wife woke up and put it on that morning before work. I said out loud, before knowing anything, “I wonder if Taylor has ever considered that she might be the problem.”

Only for her to release a song called Anti-Hero with the line: “It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me.”

We had a good laugh.

Here’s why I’m rooting for Taylor and Travis:

Cultural impact.

When’s the last time you saw an outwardly happy power couple of their magnitude in pop culture. Taylor has legitimate claim to being the most popular woman on the planet and Travis is by YouGov standards, the 5th most popular NFL player as of Q4 2023.

The only other ones that come to mind are Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds or Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher.

They don’t have have anywhere close to the cultural impact of Taylor and Travis.

Why is that important?

As far as I know, they’re both relatively wholesome people. Something else that seems to be rare among those with that amount of fame.

Whether we like it or not, kids today grow up idolizing pop culture icons or internet celebrities of all kinds. Should we not hope that the biggest role models of all act like they’re in a loving, happy relationship and have both achieved the highest levels of their dreams?

I’ll take it over Sam Smith dancing around wearing devil horns with no clothes on, Nicki Minaj singing about her WAP on national television, whatever the hell is going on with Will and Jada or Kanye West being a couple of steps away from trying to bring back The Third Reich.

Everyone who took the prop bet on the postgame proposal lost their money. But, I reckon that would have improved some of the attitude towards marriage in the western world too.

“What do you mean you’re not going to propose on national TV like Taylor’s boyfriend!”

Let people enjoy things.

For some reason there is a group of bitter and cynical people on the internet, who think it is there god-given duty to pee in everyone’s Cheerios.

I said it before, if you tried to write the script for this relationship, hollywood would throw it out as too unbelievable. Which is, I guess, why some people don’t believe it.

Do we have to root for there to be a heel in every story? Can we, for once, take something at face value? Believe that good things can happen. Believe that there is a bit of magic about the world.

I’ve talked before about Chris’ Cynicism Safety Blanket.

How about Gurwinder’s Cynical Genius Illusion:

Just because you don’t care, doesn’t mean that other people shouldn’t.

Creating connection.

I thought this was cheesy when I first saw it. But, the more I thought about it and saw some of the first hand accounts online, the more important I believe it to be.

Cetaphil (the skincare company) released a Super Bowl ad last week before the game depicting a dad and his teenage daughter watching the game together. The two were a real family living in New York.

Do you think that happens or is a common occurrence without this relationship?

Here’s former NHL player Aaron Ward’s take:

Women were throwing their own Super Bowl parties…

I saw couple friends who couldn’t care less about the teams playing or about football in general wearing “Go Taylor’s Boyfriend” t-shirts while watching the game.

How many millennial couples or dad/daughter duos got to spend time together over the past few weeks on what would normally be a separated NFL Sunday?

It’s something I’m noticing an unfortunate amount of in my own relationship lately, we spend a lot of time staring at seperate screens disconnected.

Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z or Millennial women now have a favorable view of the NFL, the highest figure ever. Female support for the league has been growing steadily since 2017, but spiked 11% between July (when the romance was speculated) and December of 2023.

That brings me to the last point…

We could use more “football players.”

Jonathan Haidt’s New York Times Best Seller, The Coddling of the American Mind was written in response to the cultural problem of Safetyism.

Because people are having less kids, the psychological importance of each kid goes up. As does the amount of attention available to each kid. Mom can’t give nearly the same amount of attention to 8 kids as she can to 2.

“If something life threatening happens to my only child it is much worse than if something happens to my middle child of 5.”

Therefore, parents use their “kid gloves” more often and when unneeded in order to shield their children from any negative or uncomfortable experiences.

This results in a lot of things. But, hilariously an increase in peanut allergies and websites that crowdsource trigger warnings for movies and TV shows.

Also, people who write articles like this. It’s football. People are passionate. Grow up.

Do you think women with a negative or neutral view of the NFL are putting their kids in a junior football league?

We can use football as a proxy for tough or difficult situations. My point is, you’re likely to learn a little more about how to be a strong kid — and thus a strong adult — by playing American football instead of European football.

Maybe the cynics are right, it was an act, they’ll break up next week and this post will age like milk.

But, for the sake of everyone else I hope it’s closer to a nice scotch.