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VIRAL NEWS: T-SWIFT, NFL, HEINZ, & VOTING REGISTRATION

A peek into cultural moments buzzing online

It's the last Friday of the month, and we want to close it up with the most relevant topics of the week that Gen Z can't stop talking about. And given the speed with which culture moves, there are certainly many stories we could tackle from this week including the end to the WGA strike, the GOP debate and the looming Seinfeld inspired government shutdown. But if you've been online at all, you already know that this edition will be all around one specific person. Let's be honest: at this point, this is Taylor Swift's world, and we're just living in it. Buckle up because this week is all about T-Swift's never ending and always expanding impact on culture!

KELCE JERSEY SWIFTIE BOOST

We are not delusional enough to suggest that certain Super Bowl winning NFL players weren’t already famous before being named in the same sentence as TS. But there’s “famous” and then there’s “Taylor Swift famous” and it's impossible to deny the impact that the superstar soft-launching her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has had on younger generations' attention to football this past week —and, to be fair, in the “famous partner” gender conversation. After the singer attended last Sunday's game, the NFL reported a 400% increase in sales for the player's jersey, putting him in the top 5 selling NFL players of the day. This spike only represents how excited Swifties are to embrace the relationship and how eager they might be to build their upcoming Halloween costume.

HEINZ KETCHUP AND SEEMINGLY RANCH

Thanks to Swift's attendance at the Chiefs-Bears game, Variety reported a spike in viewership to over 24 million people with an exceptional lift among female demographics across the ages of 12-17 and 18-49. This grand event led to fan accounts dissecting every moment in which Taylor appeared on camera, even reporting on the snacks she ate: "chicken tenders, ketchup, and seemingly ranch." Heinz saw the opportunity to jump on a viral moment and released a limited edition of their already existing "Kranch" under the label "Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch." Talk about impacting the economy!

IN MY VOTING ERA

And if that weren’t enough, earlier in the week, Taylor posted a message on her Instagram stories encouraging her over 273 million followers to register during National Vote Registration Day. Vote.org reported a 23% increase in registration, with more than 35,000 new voters signing up, notably doubling last year's 18-year-old registering numbers. The organization cannot accurately track how many registrants came directly from Tay-Tay's call to action, but they did notice that the site visits had a 1,226% jump the hour after her posting. One doesn’t need to be a Mastermind to figure it out, right? (Our apologies; we HAD to have at least ONE.)