I hope you’re just as obsessed with this morning’s development as I am. This. Folks. This, is a defining moment in the era of social media smut, as the two dominant players (leaders) of the game (world) go tete-a-tete in the arena.

First, let’s size up the competition. Here’s what each woman is working with:

Kim KW has 77.3 million Instagram followers, 46.7 million Twitter followers, 4 sisters, 2 kids, 1 husband with 21 Grammys.

Taylor Swift has 85.8 million Instagram followers, 79.5 million Twitter followers, a squad of models, a new boyfriend (who is in serious Bond contention) and 10 Grammys.

There’s the battle card. On paper, Taylor has the odds on favourite to come out of this crusade a winner. No? But there are intangible facts that oddsmakers often overlook, and that’s where we as discerning students of pop culture need to close the textbooks, and use the force. Or, something like that.

Like it or not, admit it or not—Kim Kardashian is, and may always be, the Queen that rules everything the light touches on social media. She may not be institutionally accomplished or recognized, but she is undeniably sitting on the throne in this coliseum. You’ve watched Game of Thrones enough to understand this level of power and influence. There will be dirty politics. There will be malicious intrigue. There will be superfluous bloodshed (enough to make Daniel Day Lewis blush).

This is what happens in the animal kingdom of pop culture and, pop music. Do you think Taylor Swift had any idea that by “going pop” in 2012 (yes haters, RED was a pop album) that she’d be fair game, fresh blood, operating under a new set of rules and regimes? The Kanye interception happened in 2009, so she entered into the pop world with a literary story arc. Exposition. Rising action. Crisis. Climax. Denouement. Today, we are somewhere in between the crisis and climax stages in this epic tragedy.

This stuff happens in Country music too (cite Sara Evans, Leann Rimes, The Dixie Chicks…) but no one cares for longer than the lifespan of a common fly. It doesn’t get the same attention. It doesn’t become part of our culture’s narrative.

So after months of “he-said, she-said”, Kim Kardashian releases admissible evidence of the, now famous, phone-call-in-question between her (nobody understands him) husband, and (the ever victimized) Taylor Swift. So, now the world knows the call happened, that Taylor gave her blessing for the song to use her name, and that Kim Kardashian secretly records phone calls for evidentiary purposes and releases them in perfect tandem with her TV show. The timing of this bomb is really the work of genius we should be talking about. She’s had this recording since the day it happened on her phone. Since then she’s held onto it, filmed an entire season of her show, done rounds and rounds of magazine and radio interviews discussing the matter, claimed she has proof of her husband’s virtue—and chose today, a Monday morning, when the gossip wheels are gearing up for the week, to release the damning recording into the socialsphere via Snapchat.

Within minutes, Taylor responded on Instagram.

Both sides are complicit. There is no victim. There is no aggressor. There is no blind party. So, yes. Taylor complimented Kanye for his grace and tact, pre-release of the song Famous in which he says, “I think me and Taylor could still have sex, I made that bitch famous”. Points go to Kanye. According to Taylor, the line she took offence to was “I made that bitch famous”, and that particular lyric was not discussed on that phone call. Points go to Taylor—she has said that all along.

Listen, Kanye didn’t make Taylor famous. He did, however, create a rather fortuitous storyline for a young phenom on the rise through the pop music. This feud is the kind of gold churned out by the celebrity culture Tin Pan Alley. It’s like an Elvis Presley hit song. It’s designed to be insatiable and memorable, fuelling conversation and imposing dramatic divergence. Fame is a creation. And no one knows this better than Kanye and his accomplice, Kim.

This isn’t over. Just as your grandmother continues to tune in every day for General Hospital, even though the stories never really change—we will follow this intentionally inconclusive soap opera for a very, very long time. I’m so freakin’ excited.