In the aftermath of the Kansas City Chiefs competing in this year's Super Bowl, sports commentator Colin Cowherd called out men who have expressed their frustration about the concentration the NFL placed on Taylor Swift - who is in a relationship with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
He referred to Swift's critics as "weird, lonely, [and] insecure" because, he thought, they have not experienced sexual intercourse yet, a status more known in pop culture as "involuntarily celibate," or "incel" for short.
.@ColinCowherd has no problem with Taylor Swift's presence for the NFL pic.twitter.com/mPvOzEgQtK
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) January 30, 2024
"The fact that a pop star - the world's biggest pop star - is dating a star tight end, who had one of his greatest games ever, and the network puts them on the air briefly, that it bothers you, what does that say about your life?" Cowherd said. "Judge people sometimes on the silly stuff that bothers 'em. It'll tell you a lot about 'em."
He explained that, statistically, a 3.5-hour NFL playoff broadcast or regular season broadcast only had "18 minutes [of] actual football," or "about the length of five Taylor Swift songs." As for Swift's camera appearances, she only had a 25-second average in such a span of time.
"When I hear this whole thing about Taylor Swift - 'I just want to watch football'- liar. You're lying," Cowherd accused Swift's critics. "That's not true. A football telecast is not just football; in fact, the commercials for four hours before the Super Bowl will be widely watched."
Daily Wire Commentators Back Swift vs. Conspiracy Theorists
Meanwhile, several commentators on The Daily Wire—a conservative media outlet—have criticized fellow conservatives who have joined in the calls for a "holy crusade" against Swift that was allegedly on the agenda should former US President Donald Trump return to the White House after this year's elections.
The string of statements from Michael Knowles, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and Brett Cooper came after Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy claimed that Swift and Kelce were in an "artificially culturally propped-up" relationship manufactured by the media intended to endorse current US President Joe Biden in November's election.
"I wonder who's going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there's a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Just some wild speculation over here, let's see how it ages over the next 8 months."
Ramiswamy's speculation was a response to right-wing figure Jack Posobiec, who insinuated a connection between Swift's political leanings and her previous disputes with the Soros family over music rights without providing concrete evidence suggesting such a correlation.
The commentators also accused the political left of using Swift's political persuasions to campaign for Biden and the Democratic Party.
Knowles confessed in his show that he was a "cautious Swiftie" and inclined to like Swift despite her liberal leanings.
"[The] reason [that] I don't buy the Taylor conspiracy theories is because I'm inclined to like Taylor," he said. "I know, she's kind of a lib, I know that her songs are not for me, I don't think I would intentionally put on a Taylor Swift song, but I kind of like her because she's normal and she's ... pretty, and she's dating a football player, and she sings about completely banal and ordinary subjects, and I like that!"
Knowles also compared Swift to her contemporaries such as Lil Nas X and Doja Cat, who have gone into detail touching on religion and their notion of evil.
In an interview with British broadcaster Piers Morgan, Shapiro indicated that he had not expected Trump's rising popularity, and admitted that his 2016 take has since been refuted.
The Daily Wire's resident Jew also found the Swift conspiracy theories "a lot ridiculous," especially how people are focused if there was any conspiracy regarding Swift's hand in the Democrat election campaign.
"This whole thing really is just a sign of our absurd times," he said.
Meanwhile, Shapiro agreed with Morgan that Swift's appearance in the NFL to support Kelce was vital in boosting viewership of its games, especially in the rise of female audiences, most of them Swifties rooting for the Chiefs to win.
Shapiro also insisted that he was not a "secret Swiftie" as Morgan suspected, but saw Swift as a good role model for young women and girls.
"My only critique of Taylor Swift is that she's 34 and all of her songs sound like a 17-year-old going through her first breakup," he quipped.
"My great hope for Taylor Swift is that Travis Kelce proposes to her, she gets married to Travis Kelce, they have lots of babies, and a bunch of young feminist women decide that, actually, marriage is not the worst idea and they get married and have a bunch of babies. And we can have a Taylor Swift baby boom."
"Facts," Shapiro's rap track alongside Tom MacDonald, has since reached the top of iTunes' list.
For his part, Walsh - more known for presenting the documentary movie "What is a Woman?" - despite not preferring Swift's music or political tendencies, refuted the claim that there was any conspiracy regarding her, explaining that millions of women and girls "love her music because it resonates with them."
"The point is that you don't need to look at Taylor Swift and think to yourself, 'What's going on here? Who is this person? Why is she all over the TV? There must be some sort of conspiracy afoot! How do we explain this? What's happening?'" he added. "If you wanna know, before thinking about the CIA and [if she is ] an asset, just go ask literally any woman under the age of 35 or 40.... Even if she's not a Taylor Swift fan, she'll be able to explain it."
On the other hand, Cooper, the sole female and Gen Z Daily Wire commentator, stated that she had a high respect for the mega-star singer as a relatively new Swiftie because of the "Taylor's Version" album re-records. She called the conspiracy about Swift propped by the political right as a "campaign suicide," especially for Trump and his supporters.
She also concurred with Knowles's, Walsh's, and Shapiro's assessments about Swift being different from her contemporaries in the music industry.
"We do not have to idolize Taylor Swift," she stressed. "I'm not telling everybody that you need to be fans of her or you need to love her ... but attacking her in the way that we are is just punching down, and it is a terrible campaign strategy. Just let it be. Because in the grand scheme of things, she is not a bad influence."
