Squad

About

Squad is a term from African American vernacular English, used to refer to a group of close friends. It is commonly used in hip-hop culture, especially trap Music and can be associated with both special friendships and organized criminal groups.

Origin

The term derives from the term squadron, which is historically an army cavalry unit. In March 24, 2004, Urban Dictionary user Greenie submitted a definition for squad^[1] defining it as "an informal group of individuals with a common identity and a sense of solidarity." The oldest instance of the term squad being used in hip hop dates back to the group "Trap Squad"(shown below).

Spread

In 2007, the hip hop label 1017 Brick Squad Records^[2] was founded by Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane. As of 2015, this was the most popular trap label associated with the term, followed by its subsidiary label "Brick Squad Monopoly"^[3], founded by Waka Flocka Flame.

On October 4th, 2014, Youtube user Casa Di uploaded a segment of a news interview featuring a woman named Donna Goudeau. Goudeau claims she is innocent of driving a getaway car prior to shouting "Pimp Squad Baby for life" at the end. In the following half year, the video managed to gather over 9.4 million views.

The term has been heavily used on black twitter ^[4], with the hashtag #Squad^[5].

Squad Goals

Squad Goals is a phrase used to represent a certain group or objective that another group is trying to imitate and reach. The phrase is ironically paired with images, normally taken from movies or TV shows; the phrase "squad looking fresh" can also be used. Multiple sites have made compilations of related tweets, including gurl^[6] and Buzzfeed;^[7] there is also a novelty Twitter account^[8]

Dicksquad

Dicksquad (also written out as D I C K S Q U A D), is a copypasta extracted from an awkward YouTube comment spoken by rapper Waka Flocka Flame. The word itself is also used in spam and shitposting.

The Squad SNL Skit

On October 3rd, 2015, SNL aired a parody movie trailer featuring an apocalyptic scenario where the world had joined Taylor Swift's squad.^[9] The 3 minute skit was aired on the night of Miley Cyrus's hosting, which lead to speculation that the singer had something to do with the skit despite not actually staring in it.^[10]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References