While Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was already a known figure in the sports world, his extremely public relationship with Taylor Swift has catapulted him to a new level of celebrity in recent months. And you know what that means: people are digging up all his old tweets.
Now, to calm your nerves, these are not the sort of problematic old tweets we’re used to seeing dug up and spread around. (Although if we’re being honest, there have been some of those as well.) Instead, the tweets—which are mostly from 2010–2011, when Kelce was about 21 years old—solidify his image as a benevolent himbo.
21-year-old Kelce’s tweets paint a picture of a man who has exactly one thought per day and who is so excited to share that thought with the world. This is a man who lives to lovingly share universal, extremely low-stakes experiences with all his internet friends.
A sampling of his beautiful, typo-ridden himbo poetry:
Relatable:
Don’t discount his ability to think deep thoughts, though:
Swifties, Chiefs fans, and casual observers of both have spent weeks making these decade-plus-old tweets go viral. Jimmy Fallon and Black Thought turned them into a song earlier this month.
People are even drawing comparisons between Kelce and one of the most perfect himbos to even grace our televisions: Lance from The Other Two.
I truly cannot think of a higher compliment.
“I’m just out here saying nonsense.”
Kelce addressed the phenomenon on a recent episode of New Heights, the wildly popular podcast he co-hosts with his brother Jason Kelce (also an NFL player on the Philadelphia Eagles).
Some loving razzing is a common occurrence on the brothers’ podcast. On the November 22 episode, Jason declared it was time to discuss “maybe the biggest news from this past week”—meaning, of course, Travis’ old tweets.
If Travis Kelce is embarrassed by his old tweets, he at least also clearly thinks they’re as funny as we all do.
“What’s hilarious is that nobody followed me back then,” Kelce said. At the time of the tweets, he was just a young dude exploring himself at college, playing football and enjoying “rock n roll class.” (A big chunk of those tweets also would have been posted during his year-long suspension after testing positive for marijuana, when he was clearly keeping busy sharing his thoughts about Olive Garden and “Chipolte.”) He didn’t join the Chiefs until 2013. And even then, no one was really looking that closely at his tweets until the Swifties took notice.
Back then, he laughs, “I was just like using Twitter as, like, a diary. I’m just out here saying nonsense.”
Kelce also says “This is why I don’t tweet anymore. Because it’s just nonsense.” But we like nonsense! We crave it! It seems pretty clear that it’s time for Kelce to start tweeting again (or using a less toxic social media app). We need more of this simple, joyful himbo nonsense:
(featured image: Perry Knotts/Getty Images)
