How Would You Explain Travis Kelce To An Alien?

Friday Thoughts

I’m trying to watch football. I haven’t had cable TV in nearly 20 years and have only really owned a TV for about 10. Los Angeles was the first city where sitting at home and watching TV felt acceptable, and even then I was fine surviving off whatever was on Netflix or Hulu.

I’m trying to softly reintroduce normal, non-intellectual TV back into my life. Trying to remind myself that entertainment can exist in the gap between deep thought documentaries about early humans and the same season of Workaholics I’ve been watching on repeat for 5 years. I thought I’d start with sports.

Last month, I randomly ended up on Spicy White Boy TikTok, which is basically a celebration of 30-something white men who have abs and who still have most of their hair. Sometimes the clips are set in slow motion and staged against seductive R&B jams, so maybe that’s where the spice comes from? I don’t know.

The star of it is Travis Kelce.¹

Anyway, I was under the impression that the general consensus on him was that he was just another Random Man from Atlanta Ohio until he got a black girlfriend in the form of Kayla Nicole, who taught him about bucket hats, Ron Isley suits, fades, eyebrow slits, beard oil, and the importance of looking like you smell good.

Beards and fades have too much power.

Honestly, I don’t think I even knew who this man was until the pre-beard and post-beard photos crossed onto my timeline in 2022 and sent me into a spiral. This man got dumped and shaved off his beard in the same way that women get bangs after a breakup. Regrettable bangs. I learned everything I needed to know about him in four Wikipedia minutes and still walked away with a shrug.

But, a year after that breakup, he’s still going. Usually being dumped by their Black Queen sends a #whitechocolate pseudo-lightskin’s personal brand into a nosedive, but Travis is still holding on. I would even go as far as to say that he is thriving. The streets are currently saying he’s trying to date Taylor Swift, even though we allllllll know a “Taylor Swift’s new boyfriend” headline holds the same amount of believability as a “Pete Davidson’s new girlfriend” one.

Anyway, last week I watched my first full non-sports bar, non-Super Bowl regular season football game. At home, on my couch. I couldn’t even tell you what teams were playing. After, though, Amazon ran a promo for Kelce, the new documentary mostly about Travis’ brother, some man who I keep wanting to call Bryan.

Yes, I watched it.

There is a scene where Bryan is preparing for the Super Bowl and giving a passionate speech to the team in a hotel conference room. As he’s, like, tearing up and sentimentally talking about #team, he just up and spits on the floor. Like, snorts back a chunk of something and spits out a white, foamy ball onto the floor.

In a hotel conference room.

Indoors.

Like, on the carpet.

Basically this.

I turned the TV off.

Also, that scene was like an hour and a half into the film. How are y’all gonna spend nearly 90 minutes trying to convince audiences that this is a powerful story of a modern legend fighting to balance family and career while weighing injuries and retirement, when we’re literally just talking about some bro who spits indoors. Please be for real.

Even before the spit incident, I was already watching the doc with a stank face. I probably watched the game with a stank face and I’m definitely writing this with stank face.

I think my issue with sports is really just an issue with football. One single solitary spitting and sweating man is gross. Times that by 50 during any given game. Then add on the NFL’s own politics like blacklisting Colin Kaepernick while keeping literal criminals on team rosters, and multiply that by the grunting, the spitting, and the hitting. The answer is no.

I did, however, also recently watch Netflix’s Quarterback and I loved it. Kirk Cousins. What a strange bird. He has one of the best hair transplants I’ve ever seen.

Back to Travis.

If I had to describe him to an alien in five words, I would say: 1) himbo 2) Bachelorette-era 3) Drake-coded 4) superthot 5) jock.

…and send them this video:

@ohthatsjuice_#CapCut #fyp #comedу #foryou #viral #funny #newheights #kelce #football #funny

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

1. Ten years ago the star of it would’ve been Channing Tatum.