Travis Kelce was at Taylor Swift’s show in Amsterdam on Saturday and, well, just as it’s been for weeks during The Eras Tour, there’s a moment that’s gone viral between the two of them. It feels like we’re back on TNT episodic television again. 

 

It happened during a three-song mashup that included “Everything Has Changed”, “So High School” (believed to be written about Travis), and “Mary’s Song”, which is a track off her debut album that she hasn’t performed in 16 years. The reason why Swifties have been waiting for this, though, is because near the end of the song, that she would have written almost 20 years ago, there’s this lyric: 

“I’ll be 87, you’ll be 89”

 

TNT were both born in 1989. And Travis wears the number 87. 

TNT is basically a Chinese or Korean drama at this point. If you know C and K-dramas, you’re familiar with this trope. In many C and K-romances, the OTP has a childhood connection. It’s the red string theory – I wrote about this at The Squawk a few months ago– and no, Taylor Swift didn’t f-cking invent it, this goes wayyyyyyy back in East Asian communities, like centuries, it’s one of the most enduring mythologies in multiple East Asian cultures because we believe so deeply in the idea of fate and destined paths.

 

My wish for TNT as they continue to cosplay their own K-drama is the Drunk Piggyback Ride, it’s a classic! 

Anyway, back to the concert, and Taylor’s Travis dedication – while she was singing, here’s how he was reacting: 

 

Travis appears to wipe his face a couple of times during the song(s) and now the whole ass internet thinks he was moved to tears over her love dedication. This very much tracks for a K-drama because the male lead in a K-drama always cries, and really beautifully too. But was Travis really crying? 

The way I see it, Brittany Mahomes is the MVP here because it’s her checking on him that’s reinforcing the theory that he was emotional. If not for Brittany’s cameo, which amplifies the suggestion that he’s crying, I’m not sure so many people would be convinced that he’s crying. I’m not totally convinced that he’s crying. But that doesn’t matter. What matters, for our purposes, is how badly we WANT to believe that he was crying. Because it fits the romantic narrative. TNT’s audience is so invested in this relationship, in their epic red string romance, that the only scene possibility here is that he was overcome with emotion and love for his girl, that time stood still for him during this song mash, and that as he looked at her, singing to him, the world fell away and it was just the two them, bound by the inevitable. A lump started in his throat, as his heart swelled with feelings he didn’t know how to name – she would teach him those words later – realising that there was never going to be any other option for him. She was his and he was hers. 

 

Isn’t this the monologue everyone’s trying to hear at the same time? 

That’s the romantic in me. The gossip student in me kinda hopes that he actually wasn’t crying. That it was just hot there, because it’s a concert and there are thousands of people dancing and sweating and breathing on each other, and what he was wiping from his face was just, like, condensation. And Brittany bopped over all like, you wanna beer? 

Because it’s the ultimate lesson in Video Assumption and gossip, which has always said more about who we are than who we’re talking about. It’s almost irrelevant what’s actually happened between TNT because we’re setting them to a script that we’re writing FOR them. 

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Taylor Swift performed on stage during "Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour" at Johan Cruijff Arena on July 5, 2024.
Photo credits: Carlos Alvarez/ Aldara Zarraoa/ Getty Images

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