In my conspiracy theory course, I have my students perform an experiment. I tell them to search the internet for “favorite famous person + Illuminati.” I’ll ask them to do it as an image search and if that doesn’t produce results, I’ll have them change the same search to a general internet search. It ultimately doesn’t matter because this never fails and it’s always humorous (the only time it doesn’t work is when a student picks an obscure band that only they know). The result is usually a singer, usually a woman, making a triangle with their hands, winking, or where they have a jumble of words behind them that a conspiracy theorist has pin-and-yarned together.
Conspiracy theories attract followers based on their feelings, not facts, and one of the strongest feelings that we have is our own sense of identity. This feeling applies when there is a person or group that we identify with. There is a reason that celebrities have followings, and in the current climate – where we can have seeming interactions with them through social media accounts – that bond seems stronger than in the past. Conspiracy theories also attract based on consequence size, which is why the more famous a person is, the more it becomes a certainty that a conspiracy theory will feature them. This is also why the obscure band that my student subtly brags about knowing doesn’t show up in the search.
This, of course, means that there are a plentiful number of conspiracy theories and accusations concerning American singer Taylor Swift. Swift is so famous that a number of you groaned when you read her name. She’s so famous that most of you figured out from the first two sentences who this article must be about. For the last few weeks conservative conspiracy theorists have begun attacking her (unless legal trouble has occupied their focus). I want to explain why she was an inevitable target.
The first person I need to discuss is the true believer. The true believer’s motive is understandable when we view the world from their perspective. This would be someone who believes all media is controlled by a nefarious force that we usually label “Illuminati.” “Illuminati” at this point has become a synonym for “them.” We do not have to delve into who they really are or the specifics of the conspiracy theory, but we should understand that this type of conspiracy theorist does believe what they are saying. Since they believe that every major figure in mass media is a puppet, then anyone who gains a significant popularity would also be under their control, if they were not, that individual would not be “allowed” to become that famous. After all, who made Steve Guttenberg a star? It makes sense that someone as famous as Swift would be a target of their conspiratorial accusations.
The second group of people are opportunists pushing conspiracy theories because they are a source of revenue. They attack the current dominant phenomenon for no other reason than because it is dominant. Today it’s a person, tomorrow it may be a game or a new technology—it really does not matter. The more popular the person (in this case) the stronger and more numerous the conspiracy theory accusations are going to be against them. The important thing to remember is that for this conspiracy theorist the subject is irrelevant but in a different manner than the above theorist. The true believer can take a public figure and swap them our for a different person because they are all puppets. The opportunist can do the same because they are not after the truth, they are after attention. They know that attacking the most famous person in the culture with some absurd claim will get attention from two sides: the haters—those that despise the person and/or believe the conspiracy theories; but also those rushing to that person’s defence.
A third category exists: those people that are attracted to any kind of celebrity gossip. These individuals do not figure in my explanation; but they are important because they help spread conspiracy theories by looking at them.
Conspiracy theories spread by exposure, and while I doubt that any Taylor Swift fan going to the comment page to defend the singer is going to be convinced that she’s a Pagan witch who wants to destroy Christianity, the danger is in the exposure to the larger conspiracy world that this theorist inhabits. Just a note: while the editors here will tell you that I’m not the best at inserting links to my sources, for this article I’m purposefully leaving out links to their claims…it’s on purpose (I swear).
Taylor Swift has a much more passionate following than some of the past targets of conspiratorial accusations, which is a problem. Person A makes an outrageous conspiratorial claim about her, someone reads a headline about that, and goes to the source. That’s where our problem lies: the conspiracy theorist has succeeded. They wanted traffic to their site and attacking this singer is a cheap way to do it. The increased traffic means more ads, and that means more money.
The problem is that the “Swiftie” is going to be exposed to all of the other claims the individual makes. They are very likely smart enough to avoid believing in other claims like the “trans agenda,” anti-vaccination claims, etc. but not all of the new visitors will ignore the other stuff. Occam award winning podcast “Knowledge Fight” has issued this warning about Alex Jones. We are all aware of some of the more viral claims that Jones has made, from his nearly crying lament that “they” are turning the frogs gay, to his threat (?) that he would eat his neighbour’s ass (in a cannibalism way not in a sexual way). These absurd claims are not sincere. They are made so that that we, the larger audience, will travel to his show (again, purposefully not linking) to hear what crazy thing he says next. Maybe while we are there, we can pick a water filter or some boner pills. This is the point of these claims.
This phenomenon isn’t new because of Taylor Swift, it’s just that she’s in the news now. Here’s what Jones claimed of the Lady Gaga’s NFL Superbowl LI halftime show on 5 February 2017,
They say she’s going to stand on top of the stadium, ruling over everyone with drones everywhere, surveilling everyone in a big swarm…. To just condition them to say ‘I am the goddess of Satan’ ruling over them with the rise of the robots in a ritual of lesser magic.
I would like to point out that he made these claims the morning of the Superbowl. As in before the event occurred. He had no knowledge of what Gaga’s performance would look like, and even then, his description is absurd. His claim of mass surveillance: it’s the Superbowl—there’s cameras (both broadcast and security) everywhere, no matter who is performing. What is a Goddess of Satan? Does Satan have goddesses? None of it makes sense, but the point isn’t to convey information – it’s to get people to tune in to his Monday show where he responds to the performance.
We can add to the list Katy Perry, who is in a unique position because extremist Christian conspiracy theorists view her as something as a traitor for abandoning her earlier persona as Kate Hudson in the genre of Christian Rock. She’s been accused of being in the Illuminati too, but going further than that she was also the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit by the Christian Rap Duo of Flame and Da’ T.R.U.T.H.. I’m about as unqualified to judge musical similarity as I am to judge asteroid similarities, so I’ll leave the music dispute over the “ostinato” to the music nerds.
What is important to me is the 4th section of the complaint where the plaintiffs allege that,
And by any measure, the devoutly religious message of Joyful Noise has been irreparably tarnished by its association with the witchcraft, paganism, black magic, and Illuminati imagery evoked by the same music in Dark Horse. Indeed, the music video of Dark Horse generated widespread accusations of blasphemy and an online petition signed by more than 60,000 demanding removal of an offensive religious image from the video.
Except, no, it doesn’t. Katy Perry’s song is about a potential suitor not expecting how powerful the attraction to her is going to be. The title of the track, “Dark Horse,” refers to an underdog in a horse race that wins seemingly out of nowhere.
The complaint only makes sense once you place the disputed lyrics against a video that has 3.6 billion views at the time of this writing. Fans of pop music, and anyone culturally aware in 2013 would be familiar with Katy Perry; but most would have unfamiliar with Flame and T.R.U.T.H. The lawsuit may have a legitimate complaint about those three notes (again, I have no idea), but the claim that Perry and her song are attacking the devoutly Christian message of “Joyful Noise” is absurd. The only reason that anyone would put the two together is because of the lawsuit, which was a side effect, if not the point entirely (Katy Perry eventually won the lawsuit on appeal with the ruling being that the ostinato was too generic to be copyrightable).
My point is that we should remember when someone like Mark Hemingway of the Federalist writes an article titled “Taylor Swift’s Popularity is a Sign of Societal Decline” or Nick “alpha male” Adams claims that Swift hates America, hates Trump, and loves Communism, they are hoping that you will not respond by asking “who?” People like Tomi Lahren, Candace Ownes, and Armand White are attempting to lift their conspiratorial worldviews up by pulling down an icon. Conspiracy theories die without attention, and these attacks are a cheap way to get that attention.
Whether you are a “Swiftie” or not is irrelevant as this applies to any fan of a famous actor, singer, public figure, or cultural phenomenon; this is probably made easier by the fact that their targets are generally beautiful young women too. We need to keep in mind that at a certain point their fame is going to generate conspiracy theories. It is important that we recognise that our response should be to ignore them.
