At the end of August, Taylor Swift took to Instagram to share her new engagement with Travis Kelce, captioning it, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.” How unique. Honestly, it hurts me a little to write this. Growing up a devout Swiftie, she was my first concert, first CD and the first popstar that I was truly obsessed with. But, all good things must come to an end, as they say.
I was lucky enough to see The Eras Tour during her first leg of the tour in 2023. It was truly an exceptional show. At this point my “standom” for Swift was petering out, but I knew that I needed to see this show. It honestly exceeded my expectations; the sheer size and time allotted for the show was like nothing that I had ever experienced before. Then, she released The Tortured Poets Department, and I had to reevaluate the situation. Did I truly like her music, or did I enjoy the spectacle of Taylor Swift? Sure, many of her earlier albums are stronger than the ones she’s churning out now, but I would not say that Swift has an extraordinary talent for creating exceptional music. She does, however, have an extraordinary talent for marketing herself and her music. If anything, I would say Taylor Swift is an equal amount of businesswoman and artist.
On Aug. 26, Taylor Swift announced that she and Travis Kelce were getting married. Her post got 37 million likes. These things also happened on Aug. 26th: One person was killed and six others were injured in a mass shooting near Minneapolis, Minnesota, President Trump announced he had fired Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, protests took place in Israel after an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza with protestors demanding a ceasefire — and those are just a few headlines from that day. No matter, the question that everyone was asking was: Did you hear that Taylor Swift got engaged?
Swift's ability to dominate headlines, charts and the music industry is honestly commendable. She has devoted her life to being a popstar, and she’s done it well. But when does it come to a point where an artist becomes a businessman or woman? One that forgets about their craft and only remembers their monetary value? It’s hard to objectively say Taylor Swift has lost her creativity and now only focuses on the money, because who’s to say that's completely true? Nevertheless, Swift has, time and again, displayed her thirst for power. Whether it derives from her very public and messy feud with Scooter Braun or her other feud with the Kardashian family or her other one with Katy Perry (you see what I'm getting at here?), it’s clear that Swift feels the desire to claim space for her fame and therefore make others aware of it.
While it is exciting that Taylor Swift is finally, finally, a fiancée, there are many other notable events that happened in the day or week that Swift broke the news. Those other news articles may have been the same — or more — important than the awesomely exciting news of Swift and Kelce's engagement. I would also argue that news outlets really harped on this engagement to bring a bit of happiness into the now grey and dreary newscape that we have come to know and expect. It is important to celebrate the positive in the world, but there comes a point where the general public is not going to be jumping for joy over the engagement of a billionaire popstar to a jock football player.
All this to say that yes, I did see that Taylor Swift got engaged to Travis Kelce, but did you also see that 75 people were killed in Gaza on the 26? Did you see that the cholera crisis in Sudan is worsening amidst the ongoing civil war? Did you see? No, you probably didn’t, since everyone was too busy asking each other whether or not they had seen that Taylor Swift had gotten engaged.
Eve Riskind is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at elr229@cornell.edu.
Hater Friday runs on Fridays and centers around critiquing media or culture.
