Why does Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift romance captivate fans? There’s a scientific reason

In the days after the Chiefs won Super Bowl LVII, it wouldn’t have been a surprise to think tight end Travis Kelce would end up on lists of the biggest sports stories of 2023.

But he ended up on lists of the biggest stories, regardless of sports.

Kelce was mentioned on the Associated Press’ most joyous moments of the year, but it had nothing to do with his success on the field, popular podcast or interactions with his mother, Donna. It was Kelce’s romance with superstar singer Taylor Swift that enraptured people around the world.

“I think we’re all excited about it,” Michal Owens, a 37-year-old Swiftie from Zionsville, Indiana, told the AP. “Until they start making good romcoms again, this is what we have.”

That feeling of joy from seeing the Kelce-Swift relationship blossom has been shared by many people.

Video of Swift running to Kelce and the pair kissing after her concert in Argentina was viewed approximately eleventy billion times on TikTok and other social media outlets.

Newsweek’s Joe Kozlowski shared what makes the couple “endearing.”

“It’s easy to be cynical about two celebrities linking up. It’s easy to gate-keep and say that real football fans should be the focus of NFL broadcasts. It’s easy to get bogged down in stats, figures and the fact that just about every game has some larger implications,” Kozlowski wrote last month.

“But ultimately, the Swift-Kelce storyline has been a good reminder of a larger truth.

“There’s fun to be had. There are goofy, soap-opera-style storylines to follow. And, ultimately, these are real people we’re talking about. There’s something endearing about seeing a public figure — no matter which side of the relationship we’re talking about — show genuine emotion instead of trotting out PR-friendly clichés at all times.”

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan also opined about why the Kelce-Swift romance is special.

”It makes life feel more magical — the prince meets the princess. Because it’s sweet,” she wrote. “Because if it’s real then not everything is media management, which is the thing that deep down we always fear. Because it’s fun. Marilyn and Joltin’ Joe made America more fun, more a romantic place where anything can happen and glamour is real. Also if it’s real it adds to the sum total of love in the world, literally increases its quantity, and the love enters the air and the world breathes it in and, for a moment, becomes: better.”

Why do people love this story?

There’s one more outlet that wrote about why Kelce’s romance with Swift is special.

Los Angeles Times writer Amy Kaufman wrote an opinion piece with the headline, “Taylor and Travis’ whirlwind romance is the love story we’ve been waiting for.”

Like many others, Kaufman has fallen in love with seeing Kelce and Swift fall in love. But why does this particular romance resonate with so many people?

Well, Kaufman interviewed Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who has done research on “the neural chemistry of romantic love.”

Here is an excerpt from the Times piece about Kelce and Swift, and the viral video of that famous smooch in South America

“It’s the basic neural mechanism of attachment,” Fisher says. Others might have seen that moment in Buenos Aires and experienced a dopamine surge — “a feeling of intense pleasure, energy, motivation and optimism” that is often correlated with the rapture of romantic love.

Even if we voyeurs are not kissing Taylor or Travis ourselves, our bodies can still experience the same chemical reactions just from watching them. Even Fisher, who was unfamiliar with Taylor’s career and viewed the clip for the first time after our call, found herself as moved as I was: “It was totally CHARMING — so real, so human, so unrehearsed and so dramatic,” she emailed later. The phenomenon behind it is called “emotional contagion,” according to Fisher — the reason why we tear up when our friends cry or get hungry when those around us are eating.

Fisher is a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute, so if you have been caught up in the Kelce-Swift romance, you now know there is a scientific reason why this love affair evokes such strong emotions.

It’s emotional contagion. That made Kelce’s romance with Swift a big story in 2023, and it looks like it will continue into this year, too.