Thank you, Taylor and Travis: I needed this

By now you've probably heard the news, or maybe just the joyful squeals emanating from TikTok or Swifties in your neighborhood. On Tuesday, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, the Kansas City Chiefs football star and the multiplatinum pop princess (or, as the happy couple refer to themselves, "your English teacher and your gym teacher") announced their engagement.

- JENNIFER WEINER

The news was not an out-of-the-clear-blue-sky surprise. For one thing, the couple have been dating for two years. For another, the announcement was so carefully choreographed, with such a long and deliberate lead-up and such an obviously elaborate plan for maximum media saturation, that it might as well have been the PR plan for a summer tent-pole movie.

First came the September issue of GQ, with Mr.

Kelce on the cover. Then, Ms. Swift joined him on "New Heights," the podcast he hosts with his brother Jason, which broke the world record for most concurrent views for a podcast on YouTube. It also broke news, when she dropped the title and release date of her next album, "The Life of a Showgirl." Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, the pair broke the internet by posting engagement pictures on each of their Instagram accounts.

In a lush garden, there was Mr. Kelce down on one knee, ring in hand; there was Ms. Swift with her hands resting on his cheeks; there was the close-up of a diamond as big as the Ritz, all set to Ms. Swift's "So High School." And just beyond the margins of the photo, perhaps, a huge team of stylists and photographers' assistants, craft service offerings, fans, lights and so on.

You might think anything that deliberate would generate a wave of backlash, a tsunami of cynicism.