Taylor Lorenz’s Power User
Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

[PATREON PREVIEW] Record Labels Are Buying Meme Pages for Millions

April 27, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In March 2025, a Brooklyn band called Geese was everywhere. Their fourth album Getting Killed had landed on every best-of-the-year list, their tour sold out, they played SNL, and they were booked for Coachella. Mainstream outlets from The Guardian to the New York Times were praising them. But the speed of their ascent triggered a familiar suspicion: some fans started calling Geese a "psyop" or an "industry plant." Even people who liked the music wondered if the band's omnipresence had been engineered. Then, at South by Southwest, two guys from a digital marketing agency called Chaotic Good Projects went on a Billboard podcast and explained exactly how they make bands go viral. Geese, it turned out, was a client. The interview spiraled into a viral Substack post, a Wired article, and a full-blown controversy about what "popular" even means anymore—and whether AI will make it all 10 billion times worse.

The Trojan Horse of Meme Pages

Kristen Robinson, a senior correspondent at Billboard, conducted the interview with Chaotic Good at SXSW. She invited them on to discuss "the secrets of song virality" for an audience of music industry insiders and aspiring artists. What they revealed was a two-part strategy that sounds less like traditional marketing and more like a distributed propaganda network.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (01:31) **The Geese Controversy Begins** - Taylor introduces the band Geese, their sudden massive success in 2025, and the immediate suspicion it generated online.
  • 2 (02:37) **The Chaotic Good Interview at SXSW** - The marketing firm behind Geese goes on a Billboard podcast and reveals their virality strategy, igniting a firestorm.
  • 3 (03:14) **Introducing the Expert Source** - Taylor brings in Kristen Robinson, the Billboard correspondent who conducted the pivotal interview with Chaotic Good.
  • 4 (05:39) **How Chaotic Good Operates** - Kristen explains the two-part strategy the firm uses to engineer song virality.
  • 5 (08:00) **Narrative Manipulation and Swaying Public Opinion** - The second part of the strategy involves controlling the online conversation around major performances.
  • 6 (08:51) **Patreon Call to Action** - Taylor directs listeners to the full, ad-free episode available only on her Patreon.

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Show Notes

[PATREON PREVIEW] Is Geese a Psyop? How the Music Industry Fakes Virality

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The Brooklyn band Geese has sparked a massive "industry plant" controversy in 2026 after their album Getting Killed and a sold-out tour led to accusations of being a digital "psyop".

 

While the music has received mainstream praise, fans became suspicious of how the band took over social media feeds almost overnight. This skepticism intensified after an interview at SXSW with Chaotic Good Projects, a marketing agency that uses armies of bots and TikTok accounts to force songs into virality.

Kristin Robinson is a journalist at Billboard who broke the story about Geese and Chaotic Good Projects. She joins me to discuss how meme pages are used by the music industry, how record labels manipulate online conversations and flood comment sections with positive messages, and how agencies can sway public perception of performances on SNL or Tiny Desk. 

As AI-generated music begins to top the iTunes charts, the line between authentic talent and engineered "slop" continues to blur. We discuss the truth behind the Geese situation, the evolution of viral marketing, and how the music industry is changing in the age of automation.

We discuss:

How viral music campaigns actually work

Why “industry plant” accusations keep happening

How platforms like TikTok shape what you hear

Whether AI artists could be the next big thing


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