From calculus to cornrows—white people invented literally every trend and nuance of popular culture in the U.S. If you let the Atlantic tell it, white girls invented “squad goals” a couple weeks ago. For this, we’re all grateful.
In an essay published last week, Atlantic writer Megan Garber chronicled “the history and context behind social media’s new favorite hashtag”—#squad. This “history” of a term that’s been popular among young black people for recent months, if not years, apparently begins with Taylor Swift tweeting at Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart two weeks ago. “You two are ULTIMATE Squad Goals,” Swift said.
Per Garber’s essay, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are a squad. Malia and Sasha Obama are a squad. Taylor Swift, Lena Dunham, and every other white, Millennial, female celebrity that isn’t Katy Perry are all a squad—a battalion, really.
(Didn’t Pres. Truman desegregate the U.S. Armed Forces in 1948? These squads are all conspicuously monochromatic!)
Swift is Garber’s focus. “She takes the clichés of female camaraderie,” Garber writes, “and commercializes them.” Swift is a famously friendly musician, and so it’s understandable that she might serve as the news hook and backbone of a mainstream piece about squads. But squad life isn’t totally performative, nor is it just slang. Squad is life. Squad is progress. Squads started with you at the bottom.
“Swift is a performer not just of music, but of friendship,” Garber writes; and this much is true.
The previous episode of middlebrow slang-jacking in prominent white media featured writers at BuzzFeed and New York Magazine agonizing the meaning and implications of “basic.” In May 2014, the New York Times published a mercifully brief dissection of #blessed, which writer Jessica Bennett credited to Macklemore, Jamie Lynn Spears, and Kim Kardashian. If you say so!
From The Atlantic. A photo of white girls, an article about #squad. *rolls eyes* pic.twitter.com/zX7sjIQ64Q
As of last night, my social media feeds were dotted with vague annoyance at this essay, its headline, and especially its lead photo, which features Taylor Swift and her pale imitators claiming the word squad for themselves. Taken together, the photo and thesis suggest a disinterest in the history and context of “squad” as popular slang. Worse yet, Garber fails to note whether she attempted to reach Gucci Mane or Fat Joe for comment.
At the Atlantic, Garber’s idealized squad is kinda. . .lame? And boring? And washed? “It’s also sort of soothing,” she writes. “Because there is also something reassuring about a squad, whether it consists of celebrities or normal people.”
What brand of weak, chamomile tea-ass squad is she describing? To me it reads less like a proper squadron, and more like 90 minutes of bikram yoga led by (you guessed it!) a white chick.
Squad means family. Squad means no one gets left behind or forgotten
