Taylor Swift Nazi Barbie ft Blake Lively

Taylor Swift, progenitor of the celebrity #girlsquad movement, officially initiated Blake Lively into her benevolent blonde power circle this week. Swift announced their friendship in an Instagram post of the two jumping mid-air in what appears to be an amusement park. “Yesterday was such an amazing day off,” she wrote in the caption. “Roller coasters, kangaroos and LOLs with @blakelively.” The Internet rolled its eyes: Sure, Taylor Swift’s excessive earnestness and wrangling of celebrity sister-friends is charming, but is there no end to this parade of besties and #squadgoals and LOLs? The eye-rollers are now rushing to Swift’s defense after Camille Paglia, the mordant cultural critic, hilariously skewered the pop star’s “obnoxious Nazi Barbie routine of wheeling out friends and celebrities as performance props” in a larger essay criticizing the girl squad craze.