For die hard Swifties only: For better for Worse! Who’s In? Who’s Out? An Exhaustive Timeline of Taylor Swift’s Squad.

For better or for worse, Taylor Swift’s “squad” has become just as much a part of her brand as “writing about boyfriends” or “cats” or “trying too hard.” And as annoying as it must be to have all of your interactions with your friends be misinterpreted as some sort of Illuminati power play, bringing (white) women together to bolster their positions in the entertainment industry, it’s also not that far from that.Over the years, and especially since her mission to re-record six albums gave her (and publicist Tree Paine) new authority over her narratives and who she allowed in them, the squad has transformed, taken on new members, and let many, many go. From Folklore to Midnights, Swift leaned into her ultravisibility and started choosing her friends wisely — or, at least, intentionally.

Since her last four new albums and four Taylor’s Versions, she has streamlined the main characters in her life, seemingly downsizing roles for Lena Dunham and Todrick Hall and leaving no room for Karlie Kloss, Dianna Agron, Cazzie David, and several blonde models including Martha Hunt. Pop stars like Katy Perry, Camila Cabello, and Lorde might have been demoted. Her closest and oldest friends, though, have appeared to rally around her.

Returning players include Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, Jack Antonoff, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Zoë Kravitz, Cara Delevingne, Lily Aldridge, stylist Ashley Avignone, and the Haim sisters. Strategically, newcomers are either professionally tied to Swift or personally tied to one of her besties (i.e., once removed). These include significant others like Bradley Cooper, Robert Pattinson, Channing Tatum, and Barry Keoghan as well as friends-of-friends Laura Dern, Greta Gerwig, and Shawn Levy. While most of the new girl friends she’s made are her tour openers or collaborators, feud rumors persist, namely between her and Olivia Rodrigo, the biggest Taylor Swift fan with a No. 1 song besides Taylor Swift. Finally, there are ex-boyfriends, such as Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy, and her current boyfriend, Travis Kelce, reliably generating search interest. With the arrival of her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, revisit the evolution of Taylor Swift’s big ol’ happy squad. Everyone has their roles. This celebrity thing only works if we all play along.

September 2008: Katy Perry and Taylor Swift meet at the VMAs right as Taylor’s stardom is about to take off. Surely they’ll be friends forever!

2008: Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez meet while dating two-thirds of the Jonas Brothers. Taylor was dating Joe, Selena was dating Nick, and although those relationships didn’t make it, their friendship did.

September 13, 2009: A day that the world will never forget. Kanye West jumps onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards and steals the mic from Taylor Swift. You didn’t need a reminder, but pocket that for later anyway.

April 15, 2010: Katy Perry and Taylor Swift perform “Hot n Cold” together. Pals!

2012: Taylor meets Ed Sheeran through their management. It’s a collab made in heaven, although their first song together, “Everything Has Changed,” won’t be out until later that year. Welcome, Ed, the first male member of the squad.

January 17, 2012: The pop star tells Vogue that she wants to bake cookies with Karlie Kloss, then Kushner-less. Karlie is happy to! Fans almost instantaneously create archives of content all about Karlie and Taylor falling in love.

August 22, 2012: Lena Dunham tweets all about how much she loves Taylor’s music. Taylor responds saying she loves Girls, which is maybe when we all should’ve predicted the performative clusterfuck that is the Lover era.

Also, Katy Perry and John Mayer (a.k.a. Taylor’s ex, a.k.a the John in “Dear John”) begin an on-again, off-again relationship that lasts two years.

October 22, 2012: When Red comes out, the liner notes have a secret message: “ASHLEY DIANNA CLAIRE SELENA.” Ashley Avignone, her stylist; Dianna Agron (Glee); her hometown BFF Claire Winter Kislinger; and Selena Gomez all get a little thank-you.

February 10, 2013: Lena Dunham gets her wish. She and Taylor hang at the Grammys and its special and lovely, and who invited Lena Dunham to Beyoncé’s Grammys? 2013 was so weird. Even weirder: Katy Perry attended with her then-boyfriend John Mayer. Just BFF things!

March 16, 2013: MTV asks Haim who they think Taylor Swift should date next. (She’s just come away from her fling with One Direction’s Harry Styles.) “T.T. Swift, don’t date someone else,” Alana Haim replies. “Come out with us, and we will party, and we will be together as girls and be merry and we don’t need guys.”

November 12, 2013: Lorde & Taylor grab Shake Shack together. To be honest, this is an ideal hang. Crinkle-cut fries, Madison Square Park on a crisp fall day? Sold. This isn’t the first time they’ve hung out, though. Taylor sent Lorde flowers after a performance, and they hung out after the Grammys earlier that year.

November 13, 2013: While taping the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, Taylor hangs out with Cara Delevingne, Lily Aldridge, and Martha Hunt. Lily and Taylor had actually already met at a Kings of Leon concert. We won’t be commenting.

November 7, 2013: During this time, the Aramis and Porthos to Taylor’s D’Artagnan were having an indirect feud. Lorde thought Selena’s “Come and Get It” was objectifying women. Selena highly disagreed. To be fair, no one really knew what feminism was until Beyoncé explained it at the 2014 VMAs.

December 7, 2013: Just ahead of the fashion show’s air date, Martha Hunt shares a snap of Taylor.

December 13, 2013: Taylor celebrates her 24th birthday in Melbourne with Lorde. There’s a weekend of events, including a dinner and a garden party.

February 6, 2014: Taylor, Cara, and Ed have a little jam sesh at the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom’s house. Taylor shared the moment on Instagram, but it’s since been deleted, perhaps a victim of the Reputation rebrand. So many men lost.

March 2, 2014: Taylor Swift meets Gigi Hadid for the first time at a Harvey Weinstein Oscars party. Yikes all around.

March 5, 2014: On their way up California’s coast, Karlie Kloss and Taylor Swift take a pit stop at the beach to enshrine their love. How many fan fictions has this photo graced?

July 4, 2014: Taylor throws her very first Fourth of July party at her home in Rhode Island. History is made. Lena Dunham attends.

August 23, 2014: Taylor credits Lena Dunham with her feminist awakening (as if she wasn’t at the 2014 VMAs when Beyoncé spelled it out with her ass). “Becoming friends with Lena — without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for — has made me realize that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so,” she explains to The Guardian. Sounds almost exactly like what she recently told Vogue about her relationship to LGBTQ+ community.

September 8, 2014: Rolling Stone takes a tour of Swift’s home. Inside one of four bedrooms, there’s Karlie Kloss’s favorite Whole Foods snacks and a rack of vintage nightgowns that Taylor and Lena Dunham wear all day long. Okay, Little Women.

Taylor also opens up about the “mysterious” celebrity she’s feuding with. “She did something so horrible,” Swift says. “I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I’m surprisingly non-confrontational — you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It’s awkward, and I don’t like it.”

October 27, 2014: Taylor Swift’s fifth album, 1989, comes out. The deluxe edition comes with a bonus song, “You Are in Love,” co-written by Jack Antonoff, Lena Dunham’s then-boyfriend. Dunham calls it her “someday wedding song.” And this is why we don’t count chickens before they hatch, people.

October 30, 2014: Karlie and Taylor crack open a cold one courtside at a Knicks game.

December 13, 2014: Taylor Swift’s 25th birthday party is attended by Karlie Kloss, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Haim, among others.

January 24, 2015: Haim and Taylor jet off to Maui.

February 13, 2015: Karlie Kloss and Taylor Swift cover Vogue together. That’s an unbreakable bond, and yet.

March 4, 2015: Taylor Swift kindly throws newcomer and longtime fan Camila Cabello a birthday party! Haim and Selena are there.

April 30, 2015: Lorde holds Taylor Swift’s foot and the internet is like … “What?”

May 17, 2015: The Bad Blood music video comes out. It’s an obvious dig at Katy Perry, but truly that’s not even the remarkable part. It’s that Taylor Swift got Mariska Hargitay to be in a music video. Notably, the only Real Squad Members are Selena Gomez, Cara Delevingne, Martha Hunt, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid, Lily Aldridge, and Lena Dunham. Selena Gomez plays the villain, wearing a blunt black bob that looks oddly like a certain other pop star.

June 27, 2015: Martha Hunt, Kendall Jenner, Serena Williams, Taylor Swift, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid, and Cara Delevingne take the stage with Taylor at her concert in London.

July 3, 2015: This year’s Fourth of July party includes Martha Hunt, Haim, Ed Sheeran, and Gigi Hadid! Gigi is currently dating Taylor’s ex, Joe Jonas, so he and Nick come along, too.

September 21, 2015: YouTuber Todrick Hall uploads a cover medley of four Taylor Swift songs. She finds it, loves it, and they become good friends.

November 15, 2015: Kendall Jenner drinks bird saliva instead of answering which Taylor Swift squad member she likes the least. Thanks, James Corden.

February 11, 2016: Karlie Kloss and Gigi Hadid attend the Yeezy Season 3 fashion show. Karlie posts, then deletes, a photo of her Yeezy sneakers. Gigi tweets that just because she was at Kanye West’s fashion show where they played that Kanye West song that features a lyric her friend claims she isn’t comfortable with doesn’t mean that she supports the song or the person who wrote the lyric. Dating Taylor’s ex? Attending Yeezy shows? Gigi Hadid is the worst squad member and we love her for it.

February 14, 2016: Kanye West releases the song “Famous” (only on Tidal) that famously features the lyrics “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous.” Taylor Swift denies signing off on the line.

One important note: At this point, Kanye West and Karlie Kloss are both being managed by Scooter Braun. Kanye drops him soon after, but Karlie remains close to Scooter to this day.

June 25, 2016: The “Famous” music video features a naked (wax) Taylor Swift in bed with about a million other celebrities. Taylor doesn’t comment, but Lena Dunham has something to say!

July 4, 2016: July already? Ruby Rose, Haim, Taylor’s then-boyfriend Tom Hiddleston, Gigi Hadid, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Martha Hunt, and Karlie Kloss are in attendance at Taylor’s annual Illuminati meeting.

July 17, 2016: Kim Kardashian West posts footage of Taylor Swift agreeing to the lyric in “Famous” on Snapchat. Happy National Snake Day! Selena Gomez doesn’t comment on it, but she doesn’t notcomment on it. Martha Hunt and Ruby Rose also tweet their support for Taylor. Katy Perry takes the opportunity to promote her song.