Overview

• University of Tennessee associate professor Matthew Pittman said the clip was a planned lesson in public relations and media literacy shared by his social media class.
• In the video, he tells students class is canceled to process the engagement news, with viewers later noting cues like a joking reference to a biochemistry midterm.
• Pittman released follow-up remarks praising the couple’s joint Instagram announcement as strong communications strategy and calling the post “perfect.”
• Swift and Kelce’s engagement post surpassed roughly 30 million likes within a day, while the classroom video drew substantial engagement across platforms.
• Online reaction split between criticism of the apparent cancellation and recognition that the scene was staged to study engagement and verification.