The global media, ever eager to collapse into a puddle of frothy hysteria, has now turned its gaze to the nuptial prospects of one Taylor Swift. British royal commentators, those venerable oracles of tiaras and tradition, have apparently descended from their gilded perches to predict a summer wedding. One must ask: have we learned nothing from the Victorians?
They understood that spectacle, when divorced from substance, is merely the opium of the masses. Here we have a pop star, a woman of considerable commercial acumen, whose every relationship is parsed like a diplomatic treaty. Yet her wedding, should it occur, will be treated as a state occasion, a merging of two entertainment dynasties.
This is not love. This is a merger, a brand synergy of the highest order. The press, desperate for a narrative to replace the dying embers of actual royal coverage, has found its surrogate.
But let us not mistake this for culture. This is the final decadence of a civilisation that no longer knows how to celebrate anything other than celebrity. We are the Romans watching the chariot races, except our charioteers wear glitter and sing about breakups.
The summer date, if it comes, will be a coronation of the banal. And we will all watch, because we have forgotten what it means to look away.
