By Lexie Rodenbaugh | Arts & Life Writer
Swifties are celebrating, skeptics are rolling their eyes and some Baylor students say they just don’t care. The engagement of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce — the internet’s most-watched couple — has the Baylor community divided.
Although the worldwide superstar and her three-time Super Bowl champion fiance are perhaps the most controversial couple of the 2020s, it seems their love has prevailed with the Instagram announcement of their engagement on Aug. 26. Though, that hasn’t stopped students and faculty from having some thoughts on this new engagement.
Being one of the world’s biggest pop stars, Swift has quite the following, with 282 million followers on Instagram and over 88 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The Swifties took a liking to Kelce almost immediately when their relationship began, and have been rooting for the couple ever since.
Klein junior Emma Kirkland is a long-time fan of Swift and a supporter of the couple since the beginning of their relationship. She said she attended multiple Eras Tour stops, has followed every Easter egg Swift drops and feels personally invested in the pop star’s happiness.
“My initial reaction was complete excitement,” Kirkland said. “I was walking on campus between classes and opened Instagram because I got the notification. I genuinely stopped in my tracks and took it all in standing in the middle of campus. I never expected to see that on a random weekday.”
Kim Patterson, a lecturer in Baylor’s journalism department, is now rooting for the couple, but didn’t always feel that way. As an expert in public relations, her initial reaction to the relationship was that it was a strategic approach to promote Swift’s newest music. Now, her perspective has shifted.
“When they first started dating, I was skeptical,” Patterson said. “It felt very scripted, or intentional by agents. … Two years in, seeing them engage with each other and interact, and seem to be committed to each other, I think it’s going to work. And I pray that I’m right.”
Some students didn’t take on the same attitude about the engagement, and aren’t excited about the celebrity pairing. For them, the announcement felt less like a fairytale and more like the beginning of Swift’s potential downfall in the music industry.
Specifically, since Swift is known for her breakup anthems and poetic ballads, students worry she’ll run out of material quickly.
“She’s forcing herself into retirement by getting married,” Chapel Hill, N.C. sophomore Lily Dulin, said. “He’s going to dull her sparkle, and her music won’t be the same.”
Others are indifferent about the couple, and are sick of the social media flood.
“Honestly I don’t really care that much,” Tucson, Ariz., sophomore Shelby Conway said. “Maybe when I was younger I’d care more, but I’m not the biggest fan of her music, and I don’t really understand the hype.”
Whether students are calling it a marketing ploy, a fairytale romance or something in between, the engagement has undeniably captured attention across Baylor’s campus. For now, students will continue to debate whether “Swelce” is destined to be a headline-making breakup or a love story that outlasts even the most skeptical critics.
