Taylor Swift is changing women’s taste in men – with Gen Zs now shunning wafer-thin, baby-faced men in favour of hunks like Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce

By Dolly Busby For The Mail On Sunday
23:05 GMT 02 Mar 2024 , updated 23:31 GMT 02 Mar 2024

As the biggest superstar in the world, every girl wants what Taylor Swift has – including the same type of partner.

Generation Z females have taken to social media to say they want a strong rugged ‘protector’, just like Swift’s bulky American footballer boyfriend, Travis Kelce, rather than a skinny, fashionable type.

TikTok, the video-sharing platform favoured by teenagers, has been flooded with girls explaining they are ‘joining the trend’ of choosing ‘strong’ men like Kelce.

Dubbed ‘America’s golden couple’, Ms Swift, 34, and the Kansas City Chiefs player, also 34, have been dating since September, with their romance very much in the public eye.

One TikToker said in a video liked 6,000 times: ‘We’re now in an era where Gen Zs, who used to like skinny guys, are now gravitating towards men that can protect them. Taylor Swift was a big part of this trend by dating Travis Kelce.’

Harry Styles and Timothee Chalamet – previously swooned over for their baby faces and wafer-thin physiques – were noted as the type of men Gen Zs are now shunning.

A video explaining the shift said: ‘Men throughout history were the warriors, the defenders, the cavemen. They hunted and fought but now they don’t really have the chance to do that.

‘This is in our primal instinct – males will fight against other males and they’re more attractive to females if they win.

Even in animated films, we love the prince who fought for Sleeping Beauty and slayed the dragon and he didn’t even know her yet.’

One person commented on the video: ‘I think guys who know how to fight are the hottest thing in the world.’

The trend in choosing stronger men stems from a phenomenon that has swept TikTok known as the ‘Twink Erasure’ theory.

Originally a term used mainly by the gay community, a ‘twink’ refers to men with a baby face and slimmer physique.

Trends over the past few years have seen men who fit into this category be hailed as the most handsome and desired by women.

But people on the platform now believe that ‘twinks’ are gaining weight to become more attractive to women.

A picture of Chalamet, 28, which users of the platform claim shows he has put on weight and can no longer be considered a ‘twink’, has gone viral.

Videos arguing this is part of a wider ‘Twink Erasure’ have been liked up to 500,000 times.

Ms Swift has been credited for starting the trend because her previous partners, such as actor Tom Hiddleston and The 1975 frontman Matty Healy, had typically smaller frames and were ‘arty’.

Her boyfriend of six years, actor Joe Alwyn, 33, is, at 6ft 2in, three inches shorter than NFL player Kelce and of a slimmer build.

Ms Swift and Londoner Alwyn shared a very private relationship, which ended in April last year.

The Shake It Off singer is now enjoying a highly publicised romance with Kelce. After Kelce’s team won the Super Bowl earlier this month, Ms Swift famously ran onto the pitch and kissed him in front of a crowd of cheering fans.