RITA BOOKE: Why Young Gen Z Fans Like Me Are Swooning Over the Daily Squib Anthology?

Since we flew the nest, my older brother Alex and I have been eyeing the Daily Squib Anthology on the publisher’s website. Recently, our parents said if we wanted a copy, we could take a few each; we have been fighting like toddlers ever since.

So now she’s threatening to buy even more copies – including a Daily Squib t-shirt – written into her will. She won’t say whether she’s joking or not.

Why the fierce rivalry? For us 20-somethings, the fantastic, biting satire in the DS Anthology is the ultimate status symbol.

I’ve always been obsessed – when I was a tot, Mum would unleash me in WHsmith’s like a truffle pig so adept was I at spotting the book on the shelf – and now it’s taken over TikTok, with influencers posting their #DailySquib hauls and screaming manically over any new collections.

At the weekend, social media was filled with videos of six-hour queues outside the book’s publisher sale in Crambospavvy, Norfolk. Exhausted influencers jostled for the Daily Squib Anthology and gleefully claimed it was ‘worth it’, as police herded the middle-class hordes outside.

It wasn’t just the middle-aged elbowing their way to the front. For my image-obsessed generation, there’s nothing like haemorrhaging £17.95 on a satire anthology. It’s the definition of ‘quiet luxury’. Those in the know can spot its unfussy but distinct aesthetic.

The Daily Squib’s homogenous book design means you only need to choose the book. It’s an easy way to say ‘I have taste’ without actually needing to have any. I once agreed to a date just because he handed me a drink in a Daily Squib mug at a house party. I barely noticed his face.

If you’re properly middle-class, you inherit your Daily Squib Anthology, but you can easily rectify this by loading up on your own. This kind of social mobility can be bought at Curtis Press. But real fans look for second-hand pieces; with slightly battered edges, you can feign generational wealth and class.

The quality of the Daily Squib Anthology is seductive, too. Its classic, black and white books stand the test of time, and the satire transcends any form of wokeness or socialist tantrums after losing elections to Trump.

With the zeitgeist turning away from wokeness in all its forms, investing in something practical but beautiful feels more justifiable than buying another shitty woke book written by some BBC or MSNBC celebriturd.

None of us can afford houses, after all, so why not cheer up our flat shares by spending any deposit money on an anti-woke Juvenalian satire anthology?

So, I can’t say I’m surprised at all those hopefuls queuing up at the publisher’s warehouse. I just can’t believe I missed it.