Taylor Swift has been terrorizing my social media feed ever since the first countdown to her new album announcement began. As a non-vinyl owner, the FOMO is real (not real enough to get a record player).
However, without any of her usual sparkling preamble—and on a Tuesday afternoon of all times, Taylor Swift announced her engagement to Travis Kelce, saying, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married” in an Instagram post showing the pair in a magical secret garden of her mind while “So High School” plays over everything.
The post quickly gained a record-breaking ten million likes in an hour and Instagram crashed. CNN interrupted something Trump related to break the news. Once Zuckerberg’s robots got social media working again, across all platforms, the memes were meming.
If you didn’t see the Instagram post first, perhaps your most chronically online friend Paul Revered the news to you.
My favorite American Doll account, Hellicity Merriman, was busy at the exact moment the ring dropped but got on it pretty fast. People were happy to ignore their real or Sim babies to get all the deets.
A lot of people were happy for their “close, personal friend, Taylor Swift.”
And while we all admit our excitement about the situation is parasocial, we are willing to celebrate any win we can get. The Kelce brothers’ New Heights podcast photoshopped Jason in to show their excitement.
Across the multiverse, people started speculating about her actual close, personal friends being guests, including wondering if frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff will be a bridesmaid. Many pointed out the heartwarming factoid that both Taylor and her bestie Selena Gomez are engaged at the same time. Will Blake Lively get an invite?
Oodles of lyrics started flowing, with people pointing out how far Taylor has come from “I wouldn’t marry me either” in “You’re Losing Me,” to now. Many people also marveled at how Travis making a friendship bracelet two years ago led to this. I can’t tell you how many “Love Story” lyrics I saw flying in the hour after the engagement. Yes, we get it, baby, she said yes!
Leading the charge was notorious Swiftie, The Empire State Building, who said, “Drop everything now” and would also like to be the venue. Lotta talk about changing the prophecy and noting that the engagement happened during Taylor’s signature month of August.
Social media managers around the globe started trying to think of clever ways to incorporate the news into their branding for the day. I’ve been appreciating the color-changing Sour Patch Kids account throughout the countdown madness, and it seems that lil Sour guy is celebrating as well, yelling (ALL CAPS), “SUDDENLY I BELIEVE IN LOVE!”
Not everyone was purely elated. Liza Minelli Outlives, who gives me all my news, mentioned the money to be made by the lawyers who draw up their prenup. One user compared the situation to “9/11 for every guy with a serious girlfriend in their late 20s,” which is…dark, man. However, overall on my algorithm at least, the Swifties are happy and also crying.
Despite the concept of “No Kings” trending, people are happy to celebrate what they’re calling America’s royal wedding. Anyway, good luck doing any type of productive work today (unless you’re lucky enough to work in media).
And for fun, here’s a few other memes that may delight you:
