Few annual celebrity-hosted gatherings are surrounded by as much outsized mythos as Taylor Swift's Fourth of July party, held annually at her beachfront home in Rhode Island. There’s Diddy’s white parties, Heidi Klum’s Halloween party, and. . . that’s it? And Taylor’s shindig hasn’t even been going on for that long. How did a weekend hangout come to dominate the holiday in a mere three years time?

The story starts with a house. Well, a mansion. Swift purchased her Rhode Island seven-bedroom home by the sea for a reported $17.75 million in the spring of 2013. The performer had just come off the Canadian leg of her RED tour, and—maybe feeling especially wistful toward the motherland—threw a Fourth of July party for her crew. On a personal blog she wrote, “Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays of the year. This time around, my touring family joined me at the beach and I wanted to show you some of the pictures because you're the reason we all get to be on tour together.”

The party then grew to include more familiar faces the following year. A mixed bag of creatives converged on the home: Girls creator Lena Dunham, model Jaime King, singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson, and Gossip Girl alum Jessica Szohr, and that year’s Hollywood prom queen and king, Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield. The group decorated a cake, they baked an apple pie, they boated, they slipped, they slid, they wore sundresses, and they smiled a lot—a lot.

The wholesome light that emanates from Swift blessed the Instagrams that made it out of the weekend. Dunham’s middle finger was the only blemish on an otherwise completely squeaky-clean time.

Then came 2015—the year of “Bad Blood” and the year of “squad,” a more succinct and sinister way to say “friend group.” Swift upped the fame quotient. In attendance was a Hadid, the sisters Haim, a couple Jonas brothers, model Serayah, Ed Sheeran (in a red coat uniform), Victoria’s Secret model Martha Hunt, and Swift’s boyfriend at the time Calvin Harris (he made his debut on Swift’s Instagram that weekend. “Friendly relations between Scotland and America” the now-deleted caption went.) It seems as though the matching American flag towels were provided for each guest, as were matching American flag onesies. Swift’s Rhode Island home was suddenly rich in pool floats, and there was a blow-up red, white, and blue waterslide.

Taymerica was officially a thing, an event, a happening.

The next year, 2016, the weekend away reached a critical mass of fame. Uzo Aduba, Ruby Rose, Martha Hunt, Karlie Kloss, Halston Sage, Este Haim, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne and her girlfriend at the time Annie Clark (a.k.a St. Vincent). The other star couple was Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, who was pregnant with their second child. Somebody hired a professional photographer (or someone had their D.S.L.R. on hand). The blow-up waterslide returned.

Paparazzi also made it out to Rhode Island last year. It was, remember, the summer of Hiddleswift, that whirlwind few months when Tom Hiddleston and Swift were dating. He wore a tank with the message, “I <3 T.S.” emblazoned on it (it was a joke), and the photos of it spread far and wide, up and down, all around.

The Taymerica equation is simple, but potent: add up all of these famous people’s social media followings and then multiply by the power of “holy heck, those two hang out?” It’s fascinating fun to try to figure out what the hell Uzo and Este talked about, or wonder what was running through Ryan Reynolds’s mind during every waking moment.

And if so many famous women (and men, but mostly women) aren’t fascinating to you, then at the very least, they’re inescapable. Most casual celebrity parties are private affairs, an escape from cameras, but photos of this annual tradition fly free and unencumbered. It’s not the Oscars or the Grammys. It’s not Paris Fashion Week. It’s a glorified BBQ. It’s hanging out, albeit in matching bathing suits and onesies. The last time we saw such a hodgepodge of celebrities goofing around in one place was the 2012 video of Justin Bieber and friends at house dancing to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” That was highly orchestrated, and Swift’s party is, too, but the overall effect of both is just some normal house party. Good, clean fun, and a lot of it.

What can we expect from this year? Well, it’s not certain that Swift has a party on the books. The performer has laid low since February, likely for strategic reasons. (She's well aware how much she risks being too ever-present. “I’m like this close to overexposure,” she said on the now infamous Kanye call tapes). The squad, as it were, has either died down in fervor or moved underground—that is, hanging out privately and in group texts, like most regular groups of friends.

It’s hard to know what’s in Swift’s head, or what her next move is going to be, but she’s probably learned some things from last summer’s Hiddleston whirlwind. Is her new boyfriend, another Brit, ready for the exposure Taymerica the beautiful affords? Are we?