To some people Travis Kelce is a well-known football player and tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs who has competed in two Super Bowls within the last five years and scored touchdowns in both games. To other people, he’s the guy rumoured to be dating Taylor Swift.
For the Swifties who want to know about Taylor’s potential new boyfriend outlets such as Rolling Stone have come out with articles all about Kelce. Recently, women have taken to TikTok to purposefully act like they had no idea who the football player was until the dating rumours, just to see their partner’s reactions.
One user on X, formerly known as Twitter, Yashar Ali posted about this trend with example videos. “I love all of these women intentionally triggering their husbands and boyfriends by saying that no one knew who Travis Kelce was until he started dating Taylor Swift,” Ali posted.
“It’s so funny how annoyed they get.”
In one video posted by Tara Althaus on TikTok, a woman is talking to her husband about the rumours. “The news about Taylor Swift and Kelce is going crazy right now,” she said. “But I think it’s so cool. She’s going to help put him on the map.”
Her husband’s eyes then went wide as he said, “The guy’s Travis Kelce. He’s like the best tight-end in football, maybe ever.” His wife chimes back in saying, “I don’t think many people know who he is. I’m pretty sure she’s the one who’s making his career go crazy right now.”
By the end of the video, her husband is in disbelief as he repeatedly asks her if she’s joking.
In another TikTok, when another girl gave her boyfriend the same comment, he replied, “That’s like the one NFL player you can’t say that about.”
He continued: “Nobody knew who the best tight end, first ballot Hall of Famer, Super Bowl two-time champion was? He had an MTV dating show.”
Some people ended up agreeing with the women, specifically because the NFL only takes place in the US. So they assumed Europeans might not know him without Swift. “I mean Taylor is worldwide and American football is mainly only in the US. A lot of people not from the US are finding out who he is and what sport/team he plays for,” one X user wrote.
Another person agreed, writing, “NGL… had to Google him. Fans of USA sports are unaware of how irrelevant their heroes are anywhere else… now if he played ACTUAL football, like in Europe… then maybe that dude would be a household name. I Googled how he pronounces his last name…currently forgot his first.”
Other commenters are people who have admitted that they didn’t know who the football player was before Swift. “Hahahaha I love these… every single man has said the exact same thing ‘he is the best tight end in football’ I don’t even know what that means,” one TikTok comment on the trend read.
“When I tell u I didn’t know who this man WAS b4 Taylor swift,” another person pointed out.
Some people joked that the partners who get emotional over who Kelce is are the same men that frequently think about the Roman Empire.
“But who did they think of more: Travis Kelce, or the Roman empire?” one commenter joked.