The Crazy Playbook
Dissecting the culture divide starring Taylor Swift
“Whoever controls the media controls the mind.” - Jim Morrison, Doors frontman
Back in the late 1930s, Orson Welles' radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds caused panic among listeners who believed the fictional account of an alien invasion was real. In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare triggered widespread fears of communist infiltration into American life. With Y2K, the press sowed concern that computers would fail, leading to New Year’s Eve panic buying and preparation for catastrophes not materialized. Reality-bending is nothing new.
In the mid-20th century, American scholar Daniel J. Boorstin wrote a book on a particular brand of fiction-as-reality, what he coined a “pseudo-event” (i.e., manufactured media). Mechanisms Boorstin surfaced back in the broadcast era remain pervasive today, fueled by made-for-social-media falsehoods. They’re grounded in an adaption of Boorstein’s term. Media operatives now broker “pseudo-rage.”
This week, we’re staring into the eye of pseudo-rage gone wild. For those who’ve missed it, there’s a concentrated, conservative effort to hi-jack the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce narrative. It’s one constructed to influence the November elections and fights across culture war fronts.
Over the last month, media networks have propagated piles and piles of bullshit, drawing in Swift, Kelce, NFL, Pentagon, social media warriors, Trump supporters, Democratic protectors, and Taylor Swift fans.
At the center of the cultural shitstorm are ideologically-based claims. In this case, they span a manufactured romance, Swift as a psyop for the Pentagon, the NFL fixing games, and a post-Super Bowl wedding as a mega-platform for liberal causes. The meta claim is it’s all meticulously designed to put Biden back into the White House.
The assertions galvanizing public attention lack evidence. And yet, they’re made with deep conviction. Claims suggest that brazen collusion among the government, the Democratic party, and Swift is happening before our eyes.
Despite the widespread incredulousness shown by media figures, the strategy to hi-jack the biggest story in celebrity culture isn’t crazy. Maybe it’s crazy-like-fox. Conservatives created a massive firestorm out of fiction that will compete with and co-opt the Super Bowl for attention.
Hi-jacks of visible, emotionally charged topics are central to rinse-and-repeat media strategies. The basis for visibility is conflict propagation. Seeing how it takes place, largely invisible to the general public and overlooked by too many reporters, is crucial to avoid amplifying information conflicts.
As seen in the Swift-Kelce case, there’s a logic behind the madness. Fringe players seed bombastic claims. They then consolidate and cohere them into a made-for-transmission narrative. It’s then amplified into a full-blown media frenzy.
As you’ll see, the Swift-Kelce conflict happened independent of underlying truth through a cascade of escalating cycles.
Here’s how it looks.
PHASE ONE: THE SEEDING OF CLAIMS
According to intelligence firm Blackird.AI, seeds sowing alternative Swift narratives were planted in September. Alongside celebrity swooning, a raft of conspiracy-minded narratives entered the conversation. The increase in conspiracy-minded claims coincided with Swift encouraging her 270+ million followers to vote in State elections. The 35,252 new National Voter Registration Day enrollments tied to Swift’s call were the most since 2020, a 23% jump over last year.
Blackbird noted around that time social media accounts and right-wing commentators went to work. They claimed the Swift-Kelce relationship was meticulously orchestrated to promote partisan ideologies. That it was a storyline to boost NFL ratings. That Swift is a populist figure ripe for her own presidential run.
Blackbird.AI also noted accounts seeding claims of the NFL rigging games for the Chiefs, calls to boycott or disrupt games Swift attended, and threats of violence against her and Kelce.
You can see how the seeding takes place and grows in the Blackbird.AI video below.
By October, Republican candidates jumped in to frame Swift in a darker light. Kadiss Taylor, a gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, derided her for celebrating witchcraft and embedding satanic nods in her show. Other commentators turned to character assaults, depicting Swift as a narcissistic, dumb, wayward, childless 34-year-old. Conservatives leaning on religious ideologies found a target worth exploiting.
If it was even possible, the target became bigger in December when Time Magazine selected her as the “Person of the Year.” For pseudo-rage-baiters, the selection proved the pop icon was more than a wildly successful artist splitting time with her football star boyfriend. They began seeding the claim that she was a government agent.
Following Time’s choice of Swift, far-right commentator Jack Posobiec claimed the “girlboss psyop has been fully activated.” Others, such as a former Trump staffer, Steven Miller, conveyed that what’s happening with Taylor Swift “is not organic.” (Miller’s post on X alone garnered 3.9 million views).
Among various claims growing into a new year, collusion stood out as a vehicle to shift perceptions of Swift.
PHASE TWO: NARRATIVE IGNITION
The Swift assault went nuclear in January when Fox News host Jesse Watters elevated a single (and maybe the most outrageous) claim circulating on social networks: that "Taylor Swift is a Pentagon Psyop." In the segment, Watters played a video of an alleged Department of Defense (DoD) official suggesting that Taylor Swift was a potential asset for the government’s psychological operations.
While the claim was quickly debunked, the story tore through the media. The video was a highly edited university research presentation, not a film from the DoD. Follow-on debunking coverage added to the news pile.
Days after the Watters drop, a Pentagon spokesperson went on record to refute the claim, saying, “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.”
The response triggered another news cycle propagating the story.
PHASE THREE: CODIFYING THE MESSAGE
Unbeknownst to armies of media outlets, liberals, and Swift protectors, mass rebuttals resulted in counter-intuitive effects.
In aggregate, the swarm of content and conversation codified the assertion’s debatability. A Swift-psyop connection solidified through a constant repetition of headlines. Search and social media sites created a growing record of assertions.
Google ‘Taylor Swift is a psyop’ and hit the news button. The framing of Swift as a political operative is now pervasive.
PHASE FOUR: FURTHER REACTION AND AMPLIFICATION
As coverage fed into repeating news cycles, it hit the radars of TV producers, writers, and entertainers. On shows like Late Night with Seth Meyers, The View, and Jimmy Kimmel Show, outrage and absurdities further intensified the narrative.
Swift-Kelce conspiracies became leading material on news broadcasts, cable TV programs, morning shows, and late-night comedy. Coverage built on more coverage.
The framing of "Swift as a psyop" proliferated across global, political, and cultural media. In just 30 days, the narrative hi-jack framed an iconic entertainer as an operative that went deep and wide. This all happened before Super Bowl hype kicked into gear.
PHASE FIVE: SOCIAL AND MEDIA CONFLICT METASTASIZE
The Swift as psyop conspiracy may take on new, even dangerous dimensions.
Consider that the Swift-MAGA divide pits close to half a billion social media warriors against each other. Both sides are equipped to manufacture content with generative AI and distribute it via sophisticated bot networks. The combination allows scale reach and potential harms to traverse beyond these massive armies alone.
Trump’s operatives have threatened to ignite a ‘Holy War’ against the queen. Swifties are known to do what’s necessary to defend her. There’s no telling what members of an extreme fan base will do. The U.S. Presidential election, as well as the protection of those at the center of the media swarm, may hang in the balance.
So, why does this seemingly crazy strategy work? Operatives know we’re primed to watch how people react to news versus reacting to the substance of the news itself. In a way, this truth suggests the logic to create pseudo-events or pre-planned media conflicts as a way of shaping public opinion.
The Swift-Kelce case reflects how cultural symbols and events are co-opted for political advantage and how they deepen cultural divides. Understanding the "playbook" is a civic duty, as it reveals the mechanisms that manipulate and distort perspectives on critical issues and events.
Marshall McLuhan is famous for saying the medium is the message. Sophisticated operatives today know those who control the medium, control the mind.
The battle for control, in this case, will be something to watch closely.
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For those of you who purchased the book, thank you. And for those who haven’t, today’s post reflects new perspectives and cases to be found in the text. I hope you check it out and sign up here on Substack for more.
Thanks for reading.
