LONDON • Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston might not be the celebrity super-couple we deserve, but they are the celebrity super- couple we need.
In times as fraught as these - surrounded as we are by tragedy in the United States, violence in Europe and the threat of long-term political turmoil in Britain - we as a people need a balm, something to soothe our troubled souls and remind us that this miserable excuse for a planet is not completely lost.
We need, in short, a photograph of Tom Hiddleston snogging Taylor Swift on a rock.
In our darkest hour, life will always find a way. During the horrors of the Second World War, for instance, people found solace in the patriotic music of Vera Lynn.
Now, when it truly feels as if the world is falling to pieces around us, we are shown a photograph of Hiddleston kissing Swift.
Hiddleston and Swift, two people who have respectively become our communal boyfriend and BFF, recipients of more botched pencil- drawn Tumblr fan-art than anyone else alive, have finally found one another. The Gatekeeper has found the Keymaster.
If these photographs don't usher in the literal Age of Aquarius, then frankly we are a lost cause.
Sure, there are plenty of questions to be asked about this glorious union, but they can be answered another time. We don't need to concern ourselves with how poor Calvin Harris, until recently Taylor's most conspicuous male photography companion, is taking the news.
Nor do we need to follow Twitter's lead by immediately wondering if the small pile of stones stacked behind them is conclusive proof that they are both members of the Illuminati.
And while, for the sake of history, we should quickly agree on a standardised composite nickname for them both - be it TomTay or Taylom or Twiddleswift - this, too, should be delayed until the magnitude of the event has properly sunk in.
Because this feels like proof that love is stronger than hate.
If these two attractive millionaires can kiss each other on a rock by the sea, like two Little Mermaid sculptures trying to meld skulls, then life is still worth living.
We didn't know it at the time, but we've been watching this burgeoning relationship from its earliest breath.
We saw the video of Hiddleston and Swift dancing together at this year's Met Gala and we thought nothing of it.
We thought we were simply witnessing some blurry iPhone footage of two self-conscious strangers obnoxiously failing to move their limbs with any real amount of coordination during an event that comic Tina Fey once described as a "fart cloud". But we were not. With the benefit of hindsight, it turns out that we were actually watching Romeo meet Juliet.
And now this attraction has blossomed into all-out love. It must be love, after all, because only love can cause two people with such an intense grasp on their public image to wander out to a public spot and openly kiss before awkwardly turning around to acknowledge the photographer who they must have known was there all along.
Clearly, now is the time to give Hiddleston and Swift some space. They need time to get to know one another. They deserve that much from us.
But not for long because they belong to us now.
THE GUARDIAN
