Register for the slat test to obtain the most insightful analysis, criticism and advice that is delivered to your inbox every day.
Objectively, it is a lot of fun to see Travis Kelce playing football. The Kansas City Chiefs Tight End give a unique combination of characteristics – its size, speed and surprising maneuverability – which, alongside quarterback Patrick Mahomes poetry, creates. On YouTube there are hourly, sizzling roles that show Kelce's ability to slip beyond the guilty guards of the opposing secondary and basically become unplaceable in the open field.
But when he drives in the mid -1930s, these days ended inevitably. So Kelce started a new phase to stay relevant and a much more difficult. He has this transition easier than most of the others: he is hot and dates Taylor Swift, two facts that have led to a simple boulevard saturation. Kelce condemned that in the megapopular New heights Podcast he moderates with his brother Jason and a hosting appearance at the restart of Amazon's game show Are you smarter than a celebrity? It is also the reason why the man was on the GQS cover The September edition, which was presented on Tuesday, to inform the world that football is not the only interesting thing about it. All Kelce had to do was to show a small charm, to reveal interior and – to be – to be able to summarize a few convincing sentences. A feasible task, right?
Hm.
Nowhere in the magazine, which is wrapped online, Kelce comes close to meeting the moment. In fact, this profile crystallizes something that has become clear about the world's most famous NFL player. Despite an A-LIST enthusiasm and ridiculous physical dimensions, the man is uniquely incapable of producing an unforgettable quote. Kelce is an absolutely zero character in pop culture, a dud of a celebrity. The attempt to stare insights from him is like staring in the sun. Only see In this leather, man:
In a weakly illuminated dining room in Miami, a waiter puts a course from Hamachi Crudo in front of Travis Kelce. “We don't get a fresh fish in Kansas City,” says Kelce.
Should readers suspect that the most uniform observation that GQ is over his cover star – the anecdote that allegedly allows us to fit deep into his soul – is he enjoying ordering raw fish when it is in South Florida? Zintilling things. Later in this section, Kelce talks about what motivates him for the upcoming NFL season and releases a proven classic in the large canon of the athlete Pablum. “Win a super bowl is the only goal,” he said. “It's the only goal. It is every goal.” Incredible. Paradigm shift.
It goes on like this. The writer Sean Manning presents a potentially appealing topic of conversation that Kelce immediately reveals. Everything you could ever ask him is immediately broken in Bromides. It is unclear
Did he enjoy traveling to the US Open quickly? “It may look like we both celebrate,” said Kelce. “But I only enjoy being fun with this really cool event that I always wanted to go to the person I love.”
Ok, but what about the “Eras” tour? What was it like to be in the epicenter of the perhaps greatest cultural event of the 2020s? “I'll be the plus,” he said. “I can be this fan. Because I'm a fan. I'm a fan of music. I am a fan of art.”
Uh. Let's try a different approach. Does Kelce have thought about retirement? How does he want his life to look away when he steps away from football? “I want to have free time. I want to have the ability to be together in my family,” he said. “I don't want to be too busy where I am traveling all over the world and are not present at home.”
In earlier Eras of the profile letter, the platitudes served by Kelce would be alleviated accordingly. Profile writers once have more leverage for their subjects in a subtle way or not in the terminal decline in the industry – in which access was the access to an army of PR flacks and bloodthirsty agents (no accident was published on the same day, the Swift announced, its new album – the tradition of tradition. As a person with profound emotional insights. A “slightly philosophical bent” in his persona.
It is difficult to accuse GQ for this. I am confident that the interactions of the magazine with Kelce were triggered in closely controlled environments and under strict time restrictions, so that the transcript pressed for a few sour juice drops before continues. But we are also far from, for example, according to contemporary profile standards, for example. A night in the desert with channing tatum here.
For what it is worth, the magazine is not the only unit that discovers that writing from something provocative about Kelce is basically impossible. His own girlfriend stared into the same abyss in her latest album, in the same abyss, The department for tortured poets. The title list mainly consists of wounded Breakup songs about its former flames, actor Joe Alwyn and Frontmann Matty Healy in 1975. These songs are usually thoughtful, angry and full of hot emotions. And yet when Swift tried to send texts about Travis Kelce, she – in the truest sense of the word – came the worst shit that she ever put on tape: You know how to know the ball Grand Theft Auto“Swift sings on the deep cut” So high school “.
Kelce is such a cipher that even the greatest songwriter of her generation draws a spaces when she thinks of him. It is a quality that probably makes him a good partner – but a tragically boring celebrity. Unfortunately there is a new Swift album around the corner and the Kelce void will continue to block the sun. Let us go from this misery. If more profiles are on the road, Kelce has to be put on site. I don't know – someone ask him about the Epstein files. Or the downball slot race in West -Missouri. Anything but the shape of A Football.