Taylor Swift has a new boyfriend?! Who cares?

Breaking news! Taylor Swift is rumored to be dating Travis Kelce, tight end on the Kansas City Chiefs, whose brother plays for the Philadelphia Eagles, and blah blah blah blah. As a huge Taylor Swift fan, I am here to admit that I’m tired of listening to every person on the planet talk about this new romance involving Swift.

To me, it feels like more people are concerned with Swift’s love life than they are with her actual career, which, by the way, could not be more successful than at this moment. Swift’s Eras Tour has been one of the most highly demanded tours by fans, topping $1 billion in sales, the first concert to ever reach this amount. In fact, The New York Times has recently published an article about Swift’s and Beyoncé’s, tour, stating how Swift’s concert could create around $4.6 billion in economic activity in North America alone. Taylor Swift is literally helping our economy from her tour, with each city having an economic boom after she visited. Let’s also note Swift’s Eras Tour movie, which has reached number one at the box office, giving fans the opportunity to enjoy her concert in a literal movie theater. Plus, Swift is releasing 1989 (Taylor’s Version) on Oct. 27. 1989 was one of the most influential pop albums to hit the charts, and one of her most streamed albums. Therefore it is easy to assume that her Taylor’s Version will dominate the charts the same way. With all this in mind, it only makes me wonder why people are purely focusing on her relationships rather than her actual career. 

In many cases, people use celebrities’ relationships as an escape. I can understand why people find excitement and intrigue when it comes to celebrities’ love lives, but when we put that in front of their literal career, then that’s a problem. By centering someone’s worth and importance purely around who they are dating, you take away from their actual accomplishments. I mean, let’s note all of Swift’s accomplishments, which consist of 12 Grammy Awards, three being Album of the Year wins, a Primetime Emmy Award, 40 American Music Awards, 29 Billboard Music Awards, 23 MTV Music Awards, three IFIP Global Recording Artist of the Year awards and 101 Guinness World Records. Needless to say, she has shattered many records and her success should not be overlooked by her possible new love interest. How would you like it if someone saw you only as who you were dating? It is belittling; simple as that. 

How about instead of focusing on who Taylor Swift is dating, we focus more on her actual career? It is hypocritical to sit there and rat on Swift for dating someone when there are plenty of other male celebrities and musicians who are doing the exact same thing. I don’t see people obsessing over them! Take a look at artists such as Bruno Mars, The Weekend, Post Malone, etc. Each has had their fair share of girlfriends, and controversy, and yet when you google them or ask others about them, they don’t say things like “he’s had too many girlfriends,” or “he needs to stop writing so many breakup songs.” What they do instead is praise these musicians’ successes. It is interesting how the focus is on the women in the music industry, not the men. How about we quit these double standards. Taylor Swift has purely been growing her career, doing nothing but trying to get people to focus on her music, and yet after all her efforts, people still are only seeing her as a woman who dates around. I imagine it to be exhausting putting so much work into your craft, only for people to be focused on a superficial aspect of your life. 

So let’s obsess over Taylor’s music instead! Stop making the same joke about how she’s going to write a song about Kelce because that’s what she does, it’s getting old. The fact is, Taylor’s music is loved and adored by millions and of fans all over the world–she is the first female artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify– and the music doesn’t just focus on her exes. Her albums each take on a different era of her life, incorporating new genres and concepts. Not every song is about a breakup. Plus, even if it was, why do people care so much? Think about all the men in the music industry who write about their relationships; it’s a topic in music that has been used by countless songwriters. Again with the double standards. 

If we want to talk about Taylor Swift, or any musical artist—especially women, let’s focus on their career as a musician, not who they may or may not be dating. While it’s okay to be intrigued, there is a limit to how much you should obsess over it. Take a pause from all the drama circulating around Taylor Swift, and just direct your attention to the actual success she has achieved, and if you want to critique her, make it about something legitimate, not some sexist take on her new boyfriend or her music. That goes for any artist, they’re not just there for our entertainment, they are human beings. Now I hope this is the last article you read regarding Swift and Kelce, because it’s time to focus on more important things.