When Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, American football star Travis Kelce, announced their engagement on Tuesday, the news not only instantly flooded social media feeds but also made the front page of the next day's national newspapers.
Despite the couple's announcement photos showing an "idyllic, private moment between two people in love", the engagement is an event that has been "milked for all its worth" by marketers and corporations attempting to capitalise on Swift's popularity to "mine engagement", said The Guardian.
'Storylining her own life'
Though Swift has famously woven her love life into her songs, she has almost always kept the relationships themselves "out of the spotlight", said The Times. That hasn't been the case with Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, "who has proudly stepped up to the role of squiring the world’s most famous woman".
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Latest Videos From
Her previous lengthy relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn was a "quiet domestic partnership" but he seemed "reticent", something which came out on her last album when Swift "unleashed her bitter rage at having been strung along by Alwyn for years with no commitment", said The Spectator.
It is perhaps the perception of Kelce compared to Swift's previous boyfriends that has allowed them both to step into the limelight together so readily. Swift has a talent for "storylining her own life", and Kelce seems "more than happy to play his part in this narrative" and "displays no trace of resentment that his future wife is so successful", said The Atlantic.
In fact, Swift announced her hotly anticipated new album during an appearance on Kelce's podcast, co-presented with his brother. "With a new album and football season on the couple's calendars", the timing of the engagement news "feels too good to be dumb luck", said Slate.
'Tiny piece of joy in a sea of troubles'
Swift's music has remained consistently popular because she has become the "diarist of millennial womanhood" and her "journey mirrors that of her generation", said The Spectator. That makes her engagement "more than celebrity gossip" but rather the next instalment in a "cultural parable". In announcing her own forthcoming nuptials, she has helped make "marriage attractive, attainable and aspirational" for legions of young women "longing for permanence" in their own emotional lives.
Also fuelling the reaction is the sense that the "news feels like a tiny piece of joy in a sea of troubles", said The New York Times. The "general feeling" from the typically ornery grounds of social media seemed to be "delight", and even the seemingly "deliberate" timing of their post didn't provoke the expected "wave of backlash" or "tsunami of cynicism".
Attention is now turning to wedding plans, with the elaborate engagement announcement having "quashed any prior suggestions they would, perhaps, quietly elope", said CNN. Devoted fans are hoping the pair will "share their wedding in an equally public way", having been "primed" to see their idol "walk down the aisle toward a happily ever after".
