I woke up on Monday morning, genuinely excited to find out who had won the Superbowl. Me, a woman who read her kindle during the entirety of the last American Football game she attended. What can I say? I’m an NFL girlie now.
Chiefs Kingdom, to be precise, and I’m not quite sure how it happened. I appreciate Taylor Swift’s music and think she’s an excellent song writer, but I’m not exactly a stan. I’d never even heard of the Kelce brothers before the reports broke about Travis wanting to give Taylor a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it back in July. But I listened to one episode of New Heights, the Kelces’ podcast, and then another ep – it’s really good?! 10/10 recommend – until I have somehow become more informed about this type of football than Gaelic, and I spent my entire childhood on the sidelines of a GAA match. (Of course, I’m not actually watching the games. That would be a step too far.)
I’m able to see that a lot of this is a parasocial over-identification with Taylor Swift because we both broke up with long term partners around the same time (that is… all we have in common. I’m not completely deluded) and it’s been affirming to watch her fall in love with someone who isn’t threatened by her talent or success, but rather, seems delighted by both. So, on Monday morning, I couldn’t wait to devour all the Taylor and Travis content – the 87 necklace! The “come here, baby girl,” as he pulled her in for a hug! The singing and dancing to a remix of Love Story by, eh, Taylor Swift! — and kick my feet in glee at how utterly swoony it all was. Honestly, if you read this storyline in a romance novel, you’d be rolling your eyes at how unlikely it was. He wins the Superbowl the week after she wins Album of the Year at the Grammys?! Sure, Jan.
But that’s not all I saw when I turned my phone on last Monday. While Taylor Swift’s appearance at the Super Bowl helped it become the most-watched TV broadcast in American television history since the 1969 moon landing with a reported 123.4million viewers, Rafah in the Gaza Strip was being bombed. One of the most densely populated areas in the world, where more than one million people have fled to refugee camps. All of this happening while America was looking the other way. Was the Super Bowl, as The Nation described it, a weapon of mass distraction?