Taylor Swift Rewrites Instagram History Twice in 3 Days After Blessing Travis Kelce’s $100M Venture

“He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring.” Those lyrics from Taylor Swift’s song ‘Love Story’ completed a full circle moment for the pop star after Travis Kelce proposed to her. And the “English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married” post is a new hit!

The internet was buzzing within nine minutes of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce dropping their engagement photos. It had already cleared crossed the 14-million likes bar within an hour. But not just that, it broke the record for the new repost feature as well (introduced in August)… 425,000 in the first hour, one million before the clock hit six.

When a single Instagram carousel can move at that speed, you know you’re watching history fairytale in play. ‘So, baby just say yes!’ And Tay-Tay sure did! But, maybe that started a whole butterfly effect. On Tuesday, Meta itself confirmed what fans already suspected: Swift and Kelce’s joint post didn’t just dominate feeds, it shattered Instagram’s engagement records and briefly broke the app altogether. “Turns out Instagram needed to process this news, just like everyone else,” Meta quipped, after admitting the servers crashed under the weight of the Swiftie stampede.

By Friday, it had garnered around 34.7 million likes, becoming the fifth most liked non-soccer post on Instagram. And before anyone could catch their breath, the second milestone dropped on Sunday—Swift became the first artist, and the first woman ever, to eclipse 35 million likes on a single post, as revealed by Taylor Swift Charts+ on X. Twice in three days. Taylor Swift is rewriting the rules of the internet.

Still, there’s plenty of mountain left to climb. The all-time champ remains Lionel Messi’s World Cup post, sitting at more than 74 million likes. Messi also holds the No. 3 spot thanks to that iconic trophy-in-bed photo. And don’t forget the outlier at No. 2. A plain brown egg from 2019 that went viral just to prove the internet could crown an egg king.

That’s the field Swift, and Trav, enjoying the ride, are staring down. But with 280 million followers and a fandom that treats every move like canon, it doesn’t feel far-fetched to think she could chase Messi down. She’s already conquered music (14 Grammys), live entertainment (a record-shattering $2.07B Eras Tour), and now she’s dipping into podcasting. Instagram dominance? Probably just a matter of time.

Taylor Swift turns Travis Kelce’s $100M venture into another big win

Wondery had signed Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce to an exclusive three-year deal, locking up not just the weekly episodes but the entire back catalog, merch, and even the global rights to spin it into something bigger. That’s a monster contract in the podcast world—$100M is quarterback money. But here’s the twist: this rocket ship didn’t fully take off until Taylor Swift jumped on board.

The show was already climbing the charts, sitting in the top four in early 2024 before slipping in the offseason. Then Travis started dating the world’s biggest pop star, and suddenly the podcast’s reach exploded 4.5 times in just two months.

When Swift herself appeared on New Heights, it was a typical ‘anti-hero’ moment for the brothers against their competition. Fans got album news, love-story confessions, and clips of Kelce hyping her up that turned into viral wildfire. Numbers don’t lie: 1.3 million people tuned in live, smashing the world record for concurrent podcast views on YouTube.

Every touchdown Travis scores now comes with the shadow of her spotlight. After all, one can hardly overlook the Chiefs’ 19-4 overall record when she’s in attendance. It’s the TS Effect… From getting that ‘all eyes on me’ pull to the luck factor. And the beneficiaries would be hoping for more of the same.