'I Usually Hate PDA, But Taylor Swift And Travis Kelce Are Making Me Rethink Everything'
I may be one of the few Brits to admit it – UK Swiftie brigade aside, of course – but I have fallen hard for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's PDA. Harder even than the two of them may have fallen for each other (okay, maybe not that hard).
Here's the thing: as a Brit, I have been conditioned from birth to conceal my emotions. While I'm aware that we, as Brits, are far from monolithic, on the whole we are a people who are known – in many cases ridiculed, I'm sure – for being difficult to read. That difficulty is part of our make-up. We apologise profusely, we deprecate ourselves so as to not shine too brightly and we conceal excitement under the guise of being unfazed.
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For the longest time, PDA – Public Displays of Affection, for the truly uninitiated – was relegated to the annals of cultural relevance. It was reserved almost exclusively for Z-listers who, clutching to their 15 minutes of fame, found some lips to snog as tabloid photographers' cameras flashed in their faces. In the UK specifically, to indulge in PDA was to rebel against everything we're taught to do, which is to be reserved, stoic and unflappable. It simply wasn't demure to indulge in puppy-like displays of affection.
Then slowly, but surely, PDA was kissed back to life. Precisely which shameless snoggers can be credited with PDA's recent status rehabilitation is tricky to pinpoint, but two people who are actively involved in its revival are Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, who have been kissing, gushing and twinkling at each other since they are rumoured to have started dating in the summer of 2023. And I love it. Their love is palpable; a Hallmark film brought to life before our very eyes.
Now, granted, I'm no Swiftie; I find the cultural storm surrounding Swift fascinating anthropologically, but I have been entirely disconnected from her romantic endeavours until Kelce started dancing side-of-stage at the Eras tour and she began jumping and downing drinks in the grounds at NFL games. Suddenly, all I could see was this actualisation of an all-American rom-com fairytale. My brain is now populated with the warm looks and adoring kisses they've shared and the sweet comments they've made about each other in front of the undeniably large audience that looms in front of both of them, both physically and virtually. Imagine dating somebody who loves you so much that it is physically impossible for them to swallow the pride they have at the prospect of having you by their side.
While accepting her award at the Video Music Awards on Wednesday for her 'Fortnight' music video – in doing so cementing her status as the most decorated artist in the award's history – Swift publicly recognised her boyfriend for the 'magic' he brought to their video shoot. 'I would always just hear someone cheering from across the studio where we were shooting [the music video],' she said, discussing the shoot of the video. 'And that one person was my boyfriend, Travis. Everything this man touches turns into happiness and fun and magic, and I want to thank him for adding that to our shoot because I'll always remember that.' Mirroring his partner's appreciation, Kelce liked a video of Swift's speech on Instagram the following day.
It's saccharine, it's sickly sweet, but it's also two people who are so helplessly in love with each other and, amid a world more polarised and divided than ever before, if anything can serve as a reminder of the power of love it's two people drowning out the noise of the world with a good, old-fashioned snog. Pucker up.
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