Fandoms still rule TV: What Swift & Kelce prove about culture in 2025

I’ve spent my career building businesses around how fans move culture–from co-founding Rawkus Records, the indie label that defined late-90s hip-hop, to launching Big Frame, one of the first digital talent management companies, to starting UPROXX with will.i.am to reimagine what a modern media brand could be.

One thing has always been clear: put the audience first, and they’ll move mountains.

The Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce engagement proves it once again. One announcement triggered a tidal wave across platforms, setting another world record with New Heights numbers, and turning fandom into a full-fledged distribution network. What happened next wasn’t just coverage–it was coordination. Fans clipped, shared, and spread the moment so widely it felt like a broadcast premiere unfolding in real time, only without a network. That’s fandom acting like its own syndication arm, carrying content across every major platform simultaneously.

Fandoms as infrastructure

For creators, this is the lesson: Fandoms aren’t just a nice-to-have–they’re essential infrastructure. Algorithms get the headlines, but fans do the heavy lifting. They cut clips, amplify memes, and spark secondary waves of attention. A loyal fanbase can make a single podcast episode feel like a season premiere.

The Swift-Kelce crossover is the clearest proof yet. According to Mondo Metrics, the New Heights episode and its clips have already generated 826.8M views and 37.9M+ engagements across platforms. If it hasn’t crossed a billion already, it will–all off the strength of fandom acting as its own distribution system.

We see the same behavior across music video culture. After this year’s VMAs, fans surged to Warner Music Group artist channels powered by UPROXX:

• Sombr’s weekly YouTube video views jumped +150% to more than 200M
• Alex Warren soared +43% past 25M weekly YouTube views as he took home Best New Artist
• Busta Rhymes climbed +23% beyond 15M weekly YouTube views tied to his Visionary Award moment

These aren’t isolated spikes–they’re proof that fandom energy translates instantly into action across screens.

The convergence effect

The Kelce-Swift phenomenon also highlights how categories are collapsing. Sports is pulling in music fandom, music fandom is amplifying sports media, and the halo effect boosts engagement across both.

This convergence mirrors what’s happening in digital media at large. Fans don’t just live in silos; hip-hop audiences spill into basketball, indie kids fuel festival content, and a single podcast guest can spark crossover waves across entertainment, sports, and lifestyle. When fandoms converge, the cultural multiplier effect is far greater than the sum of the parts.

What this means for YouTubers, agents…and brands

• For creators: Think of your content as a spark, but your fandom as the accelerant. Prioritize engagement, not just views. Foster spaces (Discords, comments, livestreams) where fans feel like co-creators.
• For agents: The new “prime time” is wherever fans converge. Packaging talent for cross-platform moments–whether it’s a podcast guesting, a co-stream, or a music collab–has outsized returns.
• For brands: Fandoms are the most reliable path to attention in a fragmented media world. Partnering with creators who have real fandoms (not just inflated follower counts) means plugging into distribution networks that move at the speed of culture. When that energy channels through connected TV, completion rates approach universality, showing how attention deepens when fans are in control.

Why this matters now

Connected TV–in large part thanks to YouTube’s popularity in the living room–is quietly becoming the biggest stage for these fandom moments. More than half of U.S. YouTube viewing now happens on TV sets, turning creator drops into shared living-room experiences again.

We’ve seen entire premieres unfold this way: Millions experiencing a release on the biggest screen in the house, then carrying it back into their feeds where the conversation multiplies. Culture once flowed from broadcast down into social. Today, fandom makes it flow the other way around–from feeds to the living room, powered by the same fan energy that just proved itself with Swift, Kelce, and the post-VMA surges.

My perspective from the front lines

At UPROXX, we see every day how fandom turns content into cultural events. A music video drop becomes a living-room premiere. A star podcast guest turns into a billion-view conversation. A VMA moment drives artists from breakout to household name overnight.

The bigger lesson is clear: Fandom is no longer a byproduct of media–it is the infrastructure of media. The creators, agents, and brands that recognize this shift won’t just ride culture. They’ll move it.