Call it what you want, but Taylor Swift has extended her pop culture dominance into 2024 in a big way. Her attendance at the AFC Championship playoff game Sunday combined with the Kansas City Chiefs’ victory and path to the Super Bowl has sparked several Swiftie investigations into all of the coincidental Easter eggs, creating a whole new code for the big game.
From the sheer amount of hidden 13s present in all the facts about the 58th Super Bowl to the way Swift has coded colors to go along with her extensive catalog, the Swiftie conspiracy theories are endless.
Late-night host Stephen Colbert and other social media personalities recounted all of the math involved in the various sets of numbers relevant to Super Bowl LVIII:
- LVIII = 58, 5+8 = 13
- The Kansas City Chiefs will play the San Francisco 49ers, 4+9 = 13
- The big game is on February 11, or 2/11, and, you guessed it, 2+11 = 13
- The Super Bowl will be Taylor’s 13th game watching the Chiefs, should she be able to attend (more on this later as well as below)
- Swift’s flight from Tokyo, Japan, where she will open the 2024 international leg of the Eras tour, clocks in at almost 13 hours
- The 49ers are a #1 seed and the Chiefs are a #3 seed … 13!
An X user pointed out that, since both competing teams have red in their colors, it really will boil down to “Red” and “Red (Taylor’s Version),” the Chiefs obviously being “Red (Taylor’s Version).”
Others have capitalized on all of the shots of Swift walking onto the field to celebrate the Chiefs’ victory alongside boyfriend Travis Kelce, who plays tight end for the team. Several shots of the couple have people scrutinizing the words they exchanged.
Many have speculated on what she whispered to him under cover of her hand. One user pointed out that maybe she’ll release “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” close to the Super Bowl. Swifties have been hankering for the next re-recorded album release, which they largely believe will be the singer’s sixth album — it’s either that or her debut album at this point, as those are the only two left.
Others pointed out that the Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens, who are purple, aka the color of “Speak Now.” Others coded the Detroit Lions, who feature light blue in their colors, “the 1989 team.”
Still, others have taken a step back to admire how this all even came to be, from Travis Kelce’s mention of the friendship bracelet he made Swift for when she stopped at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City on the Eras tour to the fact that she first played more songs from “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” at that stop on the tour.
“I’m not saying the Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl solely because Taylor sang Long Live for the first time in Kansas City but….. They gave us our trophies and we held them up for our town,” one X user marveled.
“This genuinely feels like the plot of a 2004 style romcom because wdym the biggest pop star in the world fell in love with the star football player at the height of their careers????” one X user wrote.
And let’s not forget that before Super Bowl Sunday on Feb. 11, Swift will likely show up at the 2024 Grammys where her 10th album “Midnights” is heavily nominated with six total nods. The comparisons to “High School Musical” are endless, with Travis Kelce mirroring Zac Efron’s Troy Bolton and Swift mirroring Vanessa Hudgens’ Gabriela. Shots of their moment on the field also parallel the scene in “A Cinderella Story” starring Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray.
Last, but certainly not least, Swifties are even clapping back at negative attention that the pop star has received for her new relationship and her involvement in football.
One user suggested that “Mean (Taylor’s Version)” was written specifically for the “dads, brads, and chads” that complain any time she flashes across the screen on an NFL broadcast.
Fox News and Republicans have tried to throw shade on Swift, but clever fans have turned their claims around.
“She did it. She got Fox News to care about carbon emissions,” one user wrote.
Another conservative conspiracy centers on Swift being a plant ahead of the 2024 election. The 49ers and Chiefs also competed in the 2020 Super Bowl before later in the year when Biden and Trump faced off for the first time.
“I love the idea that liberals conspired to get Taylor Swift to date Travis Kelce and then rigged the playoffs because this somehow abstractedly helps Biden,” Andrew Nadeau wrote. “That’s where we shine. We can’t get free healthcare but perfectly execute a Riddler-esque conspiracy to ruin a football game.”
Jen Psaki told conspiracists to “Shake it off!”
Read on for more reactions to this moment in pop culture: