I don’t remember the first time I cried about my curly hair as a child, or the first time I was teased for liking soccer in elementary school.
But I can pinpoint the exact moment I heard Taylor Swift on the radio for the first time.
When I was 9 years old, I heard my first guitar strings on the radio when I came home from Hebrew school on an NFL Sunday in the early fall. By the time the chorus of her debut single “Tim McGraw” hit, I was silent, and by the time I reached the bridge I was in a trance.
After falling in love with her music, I learned that Swift also has curly hair. Big blonde curly hair, like mine, is styled in seemingly organized chaos. Unlike pop culture, where having curly hair was seen as something to be “fixed” to meet society’s beauty standards (“The Princess Diaries”), Swift embraced her natural hair and showed off her 9-year-old curls. was hardly shown. -It was okay for me to do that in the past.
It felt like she was my friend, and ever since then, her ever-changing musical style has helped me through everything from high school drama to the death of a loved one. .
Swift, the girlfriend of Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce, will be playing in Buffalo, Green Bay and most of the places Kelce has played this weekend when Kansas City takes on the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game. He is expected to come to Baltimore just as he was there. season. She’s not just playing it to get attention, Jumping into the crowd shirtless Dancing at the monument. She cheers and dances like any other soccer fan.
Through the support of her fans and her boyfriend, Swift is proving to a new wave of soccer fans that it’s not a bad thing to fall in love with the sport they’ve ignored most of their lives, and now they’re I think sports are wonderful. I’ve been ostracized for not being a “typical” football fan, but Swift shows that it’s cool for everyone.
But of course there are naysayers on the internet trying to ruin it for everyone.
They question the attention she’s getting and wonder why the match isn’t getting more attention. They howled as the now infamous graphic showing Kelsey’s stats before and after going public with their relationship appeared on screen. They’re uncomfortable with a TikTok trend where girls joke that Swift put Kelce on the map.
Is it too much? probably!
So what if, for some, this Sunday was less about a football game and more about a pop culture event? So what if Swift was enjoying some local food in her suite at M&T Bank Stadium? (Hey, Taylor, don’t worry about screaming “Oh” during “The Star-Spangled Banner”). We embrace and even celebrate fans of extreme sports, so why aren’t Swifties given the same treatment?
Football is supposed to be fun. Even if this makes the game more exciting for some people, who cares? NFL fans should be excited to see football brought to a larger base. This sport, like Swift’s music, is for everyone, whether you’re looking to catch a glimpse of a pop star, shout about a first down, or, like me, both.
On Sunday, Baltimore will host its first AFC Championship Game since 1971. Everyone who wants to watch the game should be kind. Let’s not make derogatory comments when Swift is in the picture or mock people who wear Ella’s tour gear instead of Ravens gear.
Thanks to Swift’s ability to change perceptions, a new group of people paying attention to football has been born. If we make them feel welcome, some people may fall in love with the game because of her, just like I did with hair.
