Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989—the year of the snake. Twenty six years later, the mystical forces of the Chinese Zodiac and Kim Kardashian West aligned to out Ms. Swift once and for all on National Snake Day. But while the rest of the world is celebrating Christmas in July aka the resurrection of Yeezus’ reputation, a few forlorn supermodels have been left standing on the wrong side of herstory. We speak, of course, of the squad. In juice bars and spin classes from L.A. to New York, Swift’s BFFs are mournfully scrolling through their Fourth of July Instagrams, rending their patriotic onesies in grief and wondering how it all went wrong.
In the wake of Sunday’s takedown, some loyal squad members chose martyrdom. The most spectacular social media suicide came from Selena Gomez. Collectively, we want to grant Gomez amnesty—after years of on-again, off-again romance with Justin Bieber, the pop star has undoubtedly suffered enough. Just imagine how many illegal drag races Gomez must have refereed, and the number of incriminating egg shells she’s had to dispose of in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, a lack of taste is no excuse for tastelessness. When Swift called Gomez in the middle of the night with a soundbite, Gomez answered, taking to Twitter to toe the party line: “There are more important things to talk about...Why can't people use their voice for something that fucking matters? Truth is last thing we need right now is hate, in any form…This industry is so disappointing yet the most influential smh.”
For all her recent resemblance to the snake emoji, Swift has made some good calls in the past—like breaking up with John Mayer and pioneering separates. But urging the historically apolitical squad to play the “talk about more important things” card will go down in history as a fatal strategic misstep, like Vietnam or that one time Justin Timberlake tried to talk about race. Gomez’s futile attempt to shut down the #KimExposedTaylorParty just gave the anti-Swifties more ammunition. Twitter attacked Selena for hypocritically trying to elevate the debate the moment her friend was in trouble—despite staying notably silent in the wake of tragedies from Ferguson to Dallas to Orlando. When users straight-up asked Selena why she and Taylor haven’t addressed police brutality and #BlackLivesMatter, Gomez got messy. The pop star responded, “oh lol so that means if I hashtag something I save lives? No-I could give two fucks about ‘sides’. You don’t know what I do.” Girl. Of course, Gomez quickly deleted her Tweet—luckily, nothing stays secret for long in 2016, the Year of Celebrity Receipts.
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Then there’s Martha Hunt. You might know her as “Taylor Swift squad member Martha Hunt,” which is essentially the A-List equivalent of Jane Doe. This lesser-known Swiftie is a company woman through and through, so naturally her Twitter defense followed her boss/friend’s script: “It's pathetic how quick our culture is to sensationalize a fabricated story..Take interest in the real problems going on. Spread love.” Even though Hunt probably hasn’t heard of DeRay Mckesson, she’s not famous enough to get dragged by Twitter—which is really saying something. In return for poor Martha Hunt’s loyalty, Taylor Swift probably stress-baked a cookie and let her eat half.
Everyone knows that Chloë Grace Moretz hates Kim Kardashian, ever since the actress shamed Kardashian’s nude selfie and Kim was all like “new phone, who dis?” Moretz, who is 19 but still should’ve known better, took Swift’s social media burial as another opportunity to criticize Kardashian. “Everyone in this industry needs to get their heads out of a hole and look around to realize what's ACTUALLY happening in the REAL world” she Tweeted. “Stop wasting your voice on something so petulant and unimportant.” Now, I think we can all agree that Moretz’s use of “petulant” was redundant and snotty. What we might have different opinions on is whether she deserved to have a picture of her anus blasted all over Twitter. Khloe Kardashian came down strong on the side of “yes, definitely,” Tweeting out a shot of what appears to be Chloë Grace Moretz’s exposed ass cheeks on the set of Neighbors 2, captioned, “Is this the a hole you’re referring to @ChloeGMoretz ???” Moretz quickly clarified that that was not, in fact, the a hole she was referring to, but rather the nether regions of a random girl who looks like her from behind.
Ruby Rose, a late addition to the squad, fittingly took her time entering the melee. She defended Moretz’s honor, tweeting, “Yo Khloe I thought you were rad when I met you but this is awful and this is a 19 year old girl.” Rose, who we used to think was too cool for Taylor Swift but apparently isn’t, also Instagrammed a Notes soliloquy in which she mused that the Internet is “sadly more often used to bring people down.” Rose gets a point for including a time stamp in her screenshot—yeah, that’s a thing now—but loses a million points for betraying her generally woke brand with all this Taytay nonsense. We’re not mad, Ruby, we’re just disappointed.
The silver lining in all this squad allegiance is Zendaya, who allegedly “liked” and then “unliked” two traitorous Tweets. While the “Bad Blood” accomplice might not have been brave enough to stand by her insubordination—that’s like, social suicide—at least she attempted to call Swift out.
Meanwhile, Zendaya watched with her face pressed against the proverbial glass as Swift haters finally got their day in the sun. Katy Perry Tweeted a perfectly timed link to her new single, “Rise,” with the advice to “#RISE above it all.” Demi Lovato liked a Tweet that proclaimed “I love Kim Kardashian,” proving once and for all that Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez, who are both 23-year-old former Disney child stars with solo music careers, are not the same person.
Oh, and according to his Instagram response, Canadian pacifist Justin Bieber wants “More love. Less hate.” As difficult as it is to take Justin Bieber seriously, it’s even harder when he’s rocking a pube ‘stache and Harry Potter glasses.
The last Swift affiliate to throw down was Abigail Anderson, Taylor Swift’s childhood best friend. Abigail is better known as the “redhead” who famously “gave everything she had” (her virginity) to a “boy who changed his mind” in a very unflattering and not-so-feminist Taylor Swift song. We know this is the same Abigail because Swift could not be bothered to give her best friend a fake name. But whatever! Anderson, who is apparently even more self-righteous than her BFF, decided to clap back by publicly praying for Kim Kardashian. Because with all of the worldwide tragedies that the squad wants us to focus on—but refuses to mention by name or hashtag—it somehow makes sense to bother God with this nonsense. Anderson Tweeted, “I pray God helps your daughter understand, that despite how many times she’ll hear daddy reference all women as “bitches,” she isn’t one. I pray she understand her father actually IS faithful to her mother, despite all the adulterous comments she will hear her father making. I pray that she will understand ‘adultery and bitches’ are just daddy’s form of art and not to worry because not every man thinks like him.” North West doesn’t really need the fake prayers of a sanctimonious white lady—at 3 years old, she has more furs and class than Abigail Anderson ever will.
With all of these unfortunate Swift endorsements, it’s fun to guess which celebrities will pledge their allegiance next. Will it be an inadvertently racist blog post from Blake Lively? A litany of Channing Tatum-esque HAHAs from the desk of Calvin Harris? Shaky, hand-held hostage footage of Tom Hiddleston, his voice cracking as he urges us all to be less petulant and just do whatever Taylor says, please, because she’s very upset?
All in all, it’s been a great week for Twitter, memes, Katy Perry, Camilla Belle, Kanye, the Kardashians, Tinashe, Snapchat, receipts, vengeance, E!, and California’s flexible covert recording laws—but a sad week for the squad.
