In March, Jesse Coren and Andrew Spelman, co-founders of the digital music-promotion agency Chaotic Good Projects, gave a live interview to a Billboard reporter at South by Southwest in which they breezily described using sock-puppet accounts to manufacture enthusiasm for artists at every level of the music industry, from major-label pop stars to niche indie acts. Spelman called the practice “trend simulation.” His motto: “Everything on the internet is fake.”
Chaotic Good’s interview went viral the old-fashioned way: by making lots of real people mad. Some were appalled by the cynicism of the company’s pitch, others by its client list, which included indie artists whose popularity fans preferred to imagine had spread organically. Most of the outrage focused on the Brooklyn band Geese and its frontman Cameron Winter, whose strangled, water-buffalo caterwaulings became inescapable in 2025. To skeptics, Chaotic Good seemed to provide the missing explanation for the group’s unexpected ubiquity. Wired called Geese’s success “a psyop,” which triggered Paste to defend the band in a piece headlined, “Congratulations, You Discovered Digital Marketing.” …
But the fight over Geese missed the larger point. The issue wasn’t really whether one rock band had been fraudulently foisted on unsuspecting listeners. It was that the same techniques that Coren and Spelman bragged about onstage are now being used to fool people on every app they go to in order to find out what other people think, not just in music but across entertainment, politics, consumer products, and celebrity gossip. Shady marketing and propaganda aren’t new, of course, but what is new is that the entire infrastructure of public conversation has been quietly captured by both.
Darknet diaries recently had an episode related to this topic. https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/171/
“Duh”
- Anyone who has been paying attention for the last 50yr.
They were doing this before the internet existed, “the feed” didn’t invent publicity stunts.
I mean, yes, but
Shady marketing and propaganda aren’t new, of course, but what is new is that the entire infrastructure of public conversation has been quietly captured by both.
I don’t think I agree that the entire infrastructure has been captured, but I do think we’re at a new stage in the neverending conflict between observation and persuasion
Well of course the internet can make it easier and more pervasive just like it does with all other forms of communication both good and bad, but that’s just a function of it being easier to communicate. Microphones make it easier than shouting, too, y’know? Just still limited to audible range.
Edit: And just to be clear (I think it is but just in case) I’m not saying that it’s good of course! I’ve been calling it out the whole time even before the internet worsened it, I’m old af lol.
Yea, call me a cynical shit, but I’m happily going around calling the Internet dead now. Arguably inevitable, and certainly not surprising.
A better analogy might be a forest full of large predators in which individuals are small prey trying to survive. Thus, hidden crevices and niches can become havens.
You’re a cynical shit!
For real though, I’m probably an overly optimistic shit, but I think your second analogy is closer to the truth, but even still a bit short of it. You’re right about hidden crevices becoming havens, but life doesn’t just survive in those havens, it mutates and evolves. Inevitably it grows out of those havens, and usually it gets eaten by some predator at that point, but sometimes that can make a predator really sick, maybe even kill it. And the forest overall can start to change again. So really I don’t think the Internet is a forest as much as it’s one big organism, and we can be the viruses.
To torture another metaphor, give a million monkeys typewriters and I think it’s inevitable you’ll get monkey Woody Guthrie and there will be a monkey revolt, because creating any kind of art and thinking artistically rejects the premise of objective valuation that capitalist logic has as a necessary premise. Art does not have inherent value like a tool or other made objects do, and it continually resists and undermines its own abstracted commodification in its pursuit of novelty/originality/authenticity. Disney tries to copy paste a Star Wars plot and only succeeds in setting a pile of money on fire, but people will be talking about Sinners for years even though nobody knew they wanted a Jim Crow horror film until it was a thing.
The fact that throughout human history and all sorts of different social conditions the impulse to make silly useless valueless art rises up again and again tells me this social structure of capitalism is built on quicksand.
Too bad Lemmy is basically dead too. Maybe it’s time to go live in the woods.
Is lemmy dead?
Nah, some dead cells and scar tissue in a few places maybe, but the immune system and cognitive capacities are still there I think
Funny, I hadn’t really noticed.
I live in the woods and I still read Lemmy
I’m sorry
It seems that this is more of the ‘clipping’ deal. I avoid video clips. They’ve gotten so horrible.
To the folks concerned that lemmy is manipulated or even dead … we ain’t big enough to be concerned about.
If lemmy was truly successful, we would see more if this crap. Mostly, we don’t. Because we are nothing.Instead we just get political psyops, for some reason.
I mean, the kind of person who will actually notice the coercive nature of the governing structures of other platforms and seek out a different space like this one here tend to be ornery. There are some bad politics sometimes to be sure but I think they’re organic.
Yes and no. There are quite a few bots that most of the time will post feeds some sites that generally have left leaning material, but every once in awhile it will post something with just the right keywords to make it really obvious it is some russian psyop shit. It is this kinda sneaky shit that I don’t appreciate. You can see this with the abolish.capital, or indigenous and green or whatever shit. Plus, lots of anti israel sentiment that is justified, but will sneak in shit like “NATO-backed”. No one talks about NATO other than fuckin russian shitheads. It is just so obviously stirring the pot.
More and more every day it seems!
It’s kind of a stark contrast between things covered in the fediverse vs outside of it. Makes me wonder how vast this fakeness really is.
There’s real internets and there’s bullshit internets
Thats why I’m algorithm free, as much as possible. Wish more would do the same.
I worry that lemmy isn’t safe anymore. Some people here lack nuance to a degree that makes their realness unbelievable.
Theres a really good post on from reddit. Its probably 10 years old now. But it makes the case that majority of what you read online is the opinions of crazy people. Which makes sense why internet discourse is the way it is. I comment a lot and while I dont think I’m crazy I’m definitely closer towards the ends of the spectrum.
99% dont comment and of that last 1% its a small % of those that make up an outsized portion of the comments. The only people who engage that much tend to be outside of normal
This. Exactly this. If you won’t own up to your crazy, I will for my own crazy. But if you look back in time at what was written and by whom, I’d argue that it has always been this way, not just in the internet age.
There is a new comm that is posting fediverse stats. Would be interesting to see this breakdown.
Are you talking about me or in general ? I mean nuance isnt the Internets strong suit anyway. But that is why i said " as much as possible " in my post. I do use YouTube (with plugins blocking related videos and using newpipe on mobile) and I dont use any streaming services (I suppose if antenna pod counts, I use that).
I’m not gonna say ads dont affect me at all but I dont really see ads in my daily life other than maybe billboards etc and I can about guarantee a billboard has never made me want to buy anything. Usually I want to cut them down becuase they should be illegal.
In general. I don’t know you and your comment seemed fine.
There just seem to be whole instances growing that attract people who want to be oppositional and aggressive. They even make communities where they cherry-pick comments from their opposing instance and then they all circlejerk about how stupid their rivals are and how awesome they (themselves) are. All the while their rivals are doing the same thing. The comments are mostly just straw men.
It’s hard for me to believe that they’re all real people and not being pushed by malevolent actors or even bots ( I include people that get paid to post propaganda here).
It seems to be growing and I’m scared that lemmy will become unusable, at least for me.
I’m just an asshole sometimes. No bots or rulers making me comment !
well, there are a lot of “i got banned from reddit” people here i feel like lol
To ask a very 21st century question: Are Geese real people or A.I. ?
They’re real people and honestly I think they make reasonably interesting music, but I could name a dozen bands/artists off the top of my head who are just as interesting and who didn’t blow up like they did
As expected. I would have been shocked if propaganda wasn’t spread online. I wonder at what point people will start interacting with each other again. When will 3rd places return?
I was out with the family just as the first nice weather was hitting where i am this year. There was a small group of well dressed guys hanging out in the middle of the parking lot. Playing one of their car stereos at a load but reasonable level, in this large shopping center. My mother gave a scoffing remark, something like, “nothing better to do.” I had to stop her and acknowledge that we literally have no third space anymore. This was much better than street racing or making tik tok video’s in Walmart. We both had a moment of sad realization. Places to just exist and interact with others without a condition of pay has evaporated. After our meal i thought of going over and joining them. Unfortunately i had prior engagements.
I never heard of Geese, but I only really use Lemmy for social media.
