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The day leading up to the final night of the Democratic National Convention was marked, online, by the fervent hope that a special surprise celebrity appearance would wow attendees. The rumor of a special guest Thursday night spread like fire across the internet, and in the end, there was no Beyoncé or Taylor Swift to be seen.
This was an extremely low-stakes viral rumor, but it should be a warning to everyone online during an election year. Check your facts. Don’t repeat bullshit you saw online, especially when it’s something you want to believe. We’re quick to call out Donald Trump when he posts obviously fake photos of Taylor Swift giving him an endorsement, but we’re less prone to do it when the rumor is something we’d like to believe.
I did not watch the DNC live, but instead spent Thursday night seeing a movie with a friend. But I did help spread the rumor. My buddy arrived while I waited in line for popcorn, walked up to me, and said he’d heard that Taylor Swift’s plane had been spotted in Chicago.
“The bands are practicing Beyoncé actually,” I said, repeating a half-remembered tweet I saw earlier that day. My friend is a hardened conflict journalist. This is a guy who’s been in and out of war zones his entire adult life. He’s reported on rumors, hearsay, and disinformation from the frontlines. I’ve written extensively about disinformation campaigns and reported on media manipulation, rumors, and how toxic fandoms twist the truth.
And here we both were two people who knew better, talking about a bullshit rumor we’d seen online.
It all seemed to start when a blue-check ex-White House staffer posted something on X.
“I’ve been sworn to secrecy, but you don’t want to miss the DNC tonight,” they said in a post that’s since been deleted. “If you thought Oprah was big, just wait.”
Liberal people online have felt great about the DNC. It’s already been a convention full of fun viral moments like Lil John performing during Georgia’s roll call, President Obama making a dick joke, and Oprah being, well, Oprah. It was plausible that the Democrats had something else wild and fun up their sleeve.
The two biggest possibilities I saw floating around were Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. The Beyoncé rumor got extra juice when TMZ reported that it was, in fact, happening. White House political director Emmy Ruiz tweeted out a bee emoji, a symbol associated with both Beyoncé and Kamala. Rolling Stone reported, credulously, that staff was preparing for Beyoncé’s arrival. Katie Phang, a journalist at MSNBC tweeted a rumor that she’d heard Beyoncé was at the United Center.
When contacted by journalists, Beyoncé’s management denied it was happening. But that didn’t matter, the rumor was everywhere and everyone wanted to believe it. It was in Reuters, CNN, The Hill, and dozens of other publications big and small.
But it didn’t happen.
“Beyoncé Frenzy Exposes These Giant Dem Influencers’ BS” declared the Daily Beast. And while it’s true that the rumor started among weird pockets of Democratic influencer internet, the problem is us. We’re the ones who saw it, decided it was true, and spread it around. We’re all vectors for disinformation.
Angry Staffer apologized for posting the rumor Thursday night after Kamala Harris finished her acceptance speech.
“I’m not sure where it started, but the people who told me aren’t prone to hyperbole. FWIW, Beyoncé was the rumor. Makes me feel a little better that Reuters, TMZ, The Hill, and other outlets also reported it, but either way—I apologize,” they said in a post on X. “Even people at the DNC were hearing that Beyoncé was in the building, so whoever started the rumor got a whole bunch of us.”
Re: special guest rumor – I’m not sure where it started, but the people who told me aren’t prone to hyperbole.
FWIW, Beyoncé was the rumor.
Makes me feel a little better that Rueters, TMZ, The Hill, and other outlets also reported it, but either way – I apologize.
I don’t… pic.twitter.com/1t0Emp6bQd
— Angry Staffer 🌻 (@Angry_Staffer) August 23, 2024
It did indeed, and we shouldn’t put all the blame on Angry Staffer. They were just telling us something we were willing to believe and we ran with it. We should remember this over the coming weeks and months.
