READY, FIRE, AIM: The Ring! Her Dress! His Shorts!

Yesterday, I wrote briefly about a Microsoft analysis of which jobs are most likely to be replaced by AI, and which were least likely.

The least likely to be replaced, according to their analysis, was ‘Dredge Operator’.

But I think Microsoft missed the boat. They didn’t mention football players. I can definitely imagine a ‘Dredge Operator’ getting replaced by AI. If we can replace taxi drivers, then we can replace dredge operators.

But football players can never be replaced. Almost by definition, a football player is a well-endowed, and usually very handsome, human being.

Who wouldn’t want to marry a football player? Like, for example, Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end, Travis Kelce.

How about… someone else who likewise cannot be replaced… one of the world’s most popular singer/songwriters, Taylor Swift?

Analysts, meanwhile, are very much in danger of replacement. So they need to do as much analyzing as possible before that happens. That’s why I was happy to come across an analysis of the Swift/Kelce engagement announcement by two talented journalists, Ashley Fetters Maloy and Rachel Tashjian, who labeled their report as “An obsessively detailed look at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement.”

The ring! Her dress! His shorts!

As luck would have it, Taylor and Travis had shared the news of their engagement on social media.

Ashley Fetters Maloy: Few celebrity engagements in modern history, save for those of the royals (and even then only some), can stop a news cycle in its tracks the way this one has. So I have to imagine that in every newsroom — maybe even in every room, period? — there is at least one person who has thought through the protocols for when this day arrived. Rachel, you and I both have, and I’m curious: How does this first glimpse of the newly engaged couple stack up to what you pictured?

Rachel Tashjian: It’s pretty much what I expected! Big classic ring (no toi et moi or nontraditional stone for this tortured poet!), very wearable and blandly pretty Ralph Lauren striped dress, a botanical monstrosity that suggests garden but is actually a highly scripted landscape of floral arrangements, and her fella in shorts to make it all look a bit more casual.

Taylor probably could have been a really good English teacher, if she’d taken that path… considering how she has inspired her millions of fans with her poetry.  (I’m willing to bet the majority of the 31 million ‘likes’ this post had received by Wednesday were not from Kansas City Chiefs fans.)

Ashley Fetters Maloy: Okay, this ring deserves our attention for a moment. The symmetry and the choice of a diamond definitely put it in the classically elegant category, and it’s certainly on the old-timey side (look at Taylor, reaching for the eternally chic, Olsen twin-beloved old mine cut). But it incorporates a few trendy aspects, too. Elongated shapes — pear shapes, marquise and emerald cuts — have been the look of the 2020s, and bezel settings have been slowly creeping up on us in the last year or two.

So I have to ask, ‘Could AI have analyzed the event any better than this?’

I mean, Travis actually wearing shorts? And Taylor in a Ralph Lauren dress?

And the implications of the diamond ring so expertly described? The bezel setting that have been creeping up on us?

I’m so glad we still have humans doing the analyzing.

Rachel Tashjian: The gold band and large diamond made me think of the ring Aidan first plans to offer Carrie in “Sex and the City,” which she claims is so ugly it makes her vomit. Platinum gold has been the preference for a few decades now, so I’m slightly surprised to see a gold band — but it is indisputably big and classic, which is also how I would describe Swift.

I would also describe Taylor Swift as big and classic.  Not “big” like, say, Rosie O’Donnell or Chris Christie or Lizzo… not that kind of ‘big”. Although I guess she’s reasonably tall, at 5 foot 10 inches. But she looks downright petite standing next to Travis (6 foot 5 inches). Unless he’s down on one knee, proposing. That’s a situation where the woman generally seems to be in the dominant position.

Ashley Fetters Maloy: I want to circle back to Travis’s shorts. A slightly underdressed husband is arguably a classic part of the proposal tableau; I always love those stories about soon-to-be fiancées knowing a guy’s going to propose because he’s randomly wearing cargo shorts to hide the ring box.

Reading this analysis makes me a bit sad, because I had not been clever enough to wear cargo shorts when I proposed to Darlene.

In fact, as I recall, I was wearing pajamas. And there was no ring box anywhere in sight.

I vaguely remember making the proposal, when Darlene was about four months pregnant. We were lying in bed — she was probably reading a book? — and I casually popped the question, “So, what do you think about getting married?”

“Sure, probably a good idea,” was her response. “If we had some kind of commitment. Good for the kid, I mean.”

“So… within the next couple of months?” I asked.

“Well, not on the Fourth of July,” she responded. “That would be too weird.”

Thinking back on that time makes me wonder… Is Taylor pregnant?  Because, for all we know, their proposal could have happened in very much the same way.   Sure, the social media post and the diamond ring and the garden full of flowers — Darlene and I never even thought of that kind of stuff.  But then, Darlene wasn’t a megastar, and I wasn’t a Super Bowl champion.

Nor was Darlene an English teacher, and I wasn’t a gym teacher.  We were just a couple of ordinary people trying to make the rent.  But somehow we made the marriage last until the last kid was out of the house. So maybe it was good for the kids.

That’s something I could post on social media, if I had a social media account.

“Okay, so she didn’t have a big diamond ring, but our marriage lasted long enough to get the kids out on their own. What more can you expect, in this day and age?”