Hate, Taylor Swift, and Worship
I want to have my cake and eat it too.
I want to have children but I also want to be able to sleep in. I want people to follow the rules of the road in the name of safety but I also want to drive as fast as I want without consequence. I only want to eat what tastes good but I also want to be healthy and full of energy. I want to have my cake and eat it too.
As far as I can tell, this is a universal human experience. We want to have two things at the same time that cannot be true together. You may not have the same dilemma’s as me but you have your things.
Over the last month or so, I witnessed one of the most public displays of this human phenomenon in the hullabaloo around the romance of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
In case you missed it, because Taylor Swift started attending Kansas City Chiefs games, her presence alone brought nearly $331 million to the NFL, the record viewership for a Super Bowl was shattered reaching an astounding 123 million people, and viewership among young women jumped by over 50%.
More people watching the NFL, everyone making more money, women are more supportive and engaged in America’s most popular sport, it seems like everyone wins, right?
Nope. A whole population of people (mostly men) expressed genuine hatred for the whole ordeal. They hated that Networks showed Taylor Swift celebrating her boyfriend's success for an average of 29 seconds a game. They hated the attention the budding romance was getting, calling it a publicity stunt to make more money. And they presented themselves as NFL purists, raging in defense of the game being about the game above all else despite it being nearly 20% commercials. (Some even went as far as to suggest this was an orchestrated event to get Joe Biden elected)
The difficult but unavoidable truth is, those who hold that belief are mad at the wrong thing. Instead of being mad at the NFL or Taylor Swift, be mad at yourself for expecting to have your cake and eat it too.
As a culture, we have decided to turn the modern entertainer into a god and the medium of their performance Church. By watching and listening obsessively, we have conspired to make entertainers some of the wealthiest and influential people in the world. And yet, at the same time, we seemingly want to be able to control what those people say and do.
In other words, we contribute to making Taylor Swift the woman of the year and the most famous woman in the world, yet are furious when she…goes to her boyfriend's game? Or when the NFL leverages her presence to increase the number of its congregants?
If you want to be mad, be mad at yourself. Be mad that we’ve relegated the true God to life’s bench, that we’ve turned Church into an unnecessary burden, and we’ve made entertainment our house of worship.
Be mad that you tried to have your cake and eat it too.
