If you were living under a rock, you’re probably the only person in the world who doesn’t know that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are dating. They just aren’t a super couple, they’re pop-culture royalty. She a one-woman music empire and he a 3-time Super Bowl champion.
They were both big in their own right but when they started dating, the sum of the parts was significantly greater than that of the individual pieces.
No doubt, dating was also great for both of their careers.
So when a report from a PR agency leaked last week outlining the details of their impending breakup, it made news. It’s since been debunked as fake but where there is smoke there’s fire.
What’s meant by this is that even if it’s fake, the concept isn’t. The person who created this fake document only did so because this type of thing happens in the celebrity world.
Showmances have been happening forever and they happen because of how they impact a person’s brand. The media and seemingly the public are into gossip so when a new couple start dating, their individual narratives are Instantaneously reset and taken over by the narrative of their relationship.
There are events that have the power to reset the narrative as we saw with the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, albeit for only a day or two.
The 1997 movie Wag the Dog also highlighted this. In the movie a Hollywood producer and spin doctor concoct a fake war in order to distract everyone from a Presidential sex scandal.
All of this highlights the sensitive position the media are in. Sometimes they are judge, jury and executioner, while other times they’re on the other side of the fence, complicit with whatever narrative is desired.
No where was this highlighted more than the coverage of #MeToo. For the longest time, they wouldn’t report on the story and this was due to a number of factors – it was an isolated case, people weren’t prepared to go on the record, the perpetrator had the legal or PR muscle to cover it up, the victim was hushed up with a NDA or whatever else the case was.
But then the New York Times broke the story and the floodgates opened up. Unfortunately there are now hundreds if not thousands of reported cases about this and if you google the guilty, hopefully their search results reflect this.