Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce may be prepping for a wedding that’s guaranteed to be ultra-private, but the public’s fascination with their love story just made dictionary history. Cambridge Dictionary officially crowned “parasocial” as its 2025 Word of the Year — and yes, the couple’s engagement played a major role in that decision.
According to the dictionary’s announcement, the global obsession with Taylor and Travis’ joint Aug. 26 engagement post sent lookups of “parasocial” skyrocketing as fans joked about (or admitted to) feeling emotionally invested in the couple’s big moment. As Cambridge explained, “Global coverage of the way in which Taylor Swift announced her engagement to Travis Kelce caused lookups of parasocial to surge as the media dissected fans’ reactions. Posts by fans say, ‘I’m not being parasocial about it,’ and talk about ‘a Swiftie being parasocial for 10 minutes straight.’”
And it’s no wonder the internet spiraled — that engagement post pulled nearly 40 million likes and broke the record for the fastest post to hit one million in under six hours. Even for Taylor-level virality, that’s wild.
But while Swifties analyzed every frame, Taylor and Travis have stayed focused on what really matters: each other. Travis put it best in his August GQ profile, revealing that being with Taylor feels surprisingly normal despite the nonstop attention. “Whenever I’m with her, it feels like we’re just regular people,” he shared. “When there is not a camera on us, we’re just two people that are in love.”
He also acknowledged that the public frenzy can “be perceived as something else because of how much it is talked about,” but insisted that their connection has remained authentic from the start. “It happened very organically even though from a media standpoint it was being tracked,” he said. “It still happened very organically.”
Taylor echoed that sentiment during her interview on The Scott Mills Breakfast Show, opening up about how much she appreciates Travis’ ability to handle the spotlight she’s lived in for years. “I love the person that I am with because he loves what I do and he loves how much I am fulfilled by making art and making music,” she said, calling his passion for football a perfect match to her passion for music.
She added that supporting each other’s careers is “the most fun thing in the world,” and even pointed out how similar their jobs really are — both performing for three and a half hours in NFL stadiums, just in very different rooms. And of course, they share one more thing: “We’re both competitive, like in fun ways, not in ways that eat away at us, but just like we just love it.”
