During a random TikTok scroll, a glittering display of a disco ball shaped like two anatomically accurate testicles with a country singer sitting on top instantly captured my attention. The video had a handful of likes and a few comments, but nothing surprised me more than the overzealous superfans of this unknown artist in the comments. This elusive country star is Kacey Musgraves.Â
I searched the name on TikTok, and almost every video I saw was of this disco ball moment. If this was so sensational that it took up the whole page of her search, then why have I never heard of her before? As I clicked on the accounts behind each video, I started noticing a distinct trend. Little to no bio, a page with only concert content, and no idea of who was behind the accounts. Most importantly, where did Kacey Musgraves come from?
After looking at a few more accounts that uploaded clips of the disco balls concert from different angles, I realized they are run by real people, as evidenced by videos of them making concert outfits or hanging artist merch in their room. So what is going on? One bio says “just two girls taking free concert tickets.” If their seats are paid for, could this mean that the video is paid for too? What about these other similar concert videos? And that leads to the bigger question: who’s paying for this?Â
To answer this, we need to zoom out and look at current marketing trends as a whole.
From what I have seen, there has been a recent change in the consumer market: major distrust of corporations, especially among Gen Z. Knowing you are being sold to instantly creates a barrier between the product and consumer. How many times have you unconsciously skipped a TikTok because of the ad label in the bottom left corner? Nothing convinces you to trust this brand.Â
To remedy the problem, brands have enlisted the help of influencers who have become a large part of social media product marketing by recommending products as an undisclosed advertisement. This new strategy has now become a critical aspect of social media product marketing. Consumers trust influencers because they have built a reputable brand for being honest and trustworthy. Think of gym influencers who recommend workouts in combination with branded protein powder. Or skincare influencers who tell you specific routines with suggested brand products. In both of these cases, seeing a real person praise a product to you makes it less obvious that a brand is paying for marketing.
However, influencers are not foolproof. The average person can probably see through their hollow smiles and realize they are paid to influence, not give you a tried-and-true recommendation.Â
The natural next step is for a brand to create ads so genuine you don’t even know it’s marketing. Something akin to an Amazon review for a product or a recommendation from a friend. Advertising is shifting to the real. Kacey Musgraves is trying to replicate that real.
While it is hard to pinpoint the exact marketing agency Musgraves uses, one name seems to have the answers for these elusive accounts: Chaotic Good. Chaotic Good is a marketing agency that simulates real hype around a music artist by creating social media content to influence real trends.
Chaotic Good employs a variety of techniques to generate publicity. One is through “narrative campaigns” that pay microinfluencers and music content creators to push a narrative about an artist. Another is “user-generated-content campaigns” that pay influencers to subtly push recent songs by those artists through TikTok background music. More elusive still are “fanpage campaigns” that create fake fan pages that show concert content, music video clips, and other fan content. Now those Kacey Musgraves videos are starting to make much more sense.
After a Billboard interview with Chaotic Good was released, they received backlash when it was discovered that some of the most popular indie bands rose to social media fame through these campaigns. Names like Goose, Mk.gee, and Dijon were the most surprising because it shattered the idea that independent creators don’t use big record-label marketing. Chaotic Good’s clientele ranges from big pop names like Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, and Dua Lipa to indie artists like Dijon and Geese. While it’s easy to look down on the artists who use Chaotic Good’s services, they aren’t an outlier in music marketing. Marketing agencies like Byword, Creed Media, and Flighthouse all employ similar methods and even the same clientele. More artists than you think could be industry plants.Â
The hope of these marketing agencies is that real people will start to take hold of the trend and talk about it until their popularity can sustain itself. Once this artist finds their audience, the fans will promote the artist for free, and the artist will not need the manufactured relevancy.
I would largely attribute the success of these campaigns to our need to be in the know. Seeing this new artist on your page suddenly have a large amount of listeners and popularity makes you feel curious. Not only that, but it makes you feel left out for not knowing. Missing out on Zara Larsson’s lush life dance or Tate McRae’s Lollapalooza performance is as if you are losing at the 100 category of pop culture Jeopardy.Â
Now, if you saw the same Kacey Musgraves video I watched, would you know you are watching an ad?Â
Chaotic Good’s methods land in a morally gray zone. On one side, these music artists genuinely worked hard to create a name and deserved to be discovered, and new fans might also discover their new favorite artist through these advertisements. On the other side, this method entirely depends on deception, which then raises the moral question of whether it’s ok to deceive people. In my opinion, no one should have to be deceived to buy into a product, even if it is something they are satisfied with in the end. Chaotic Good also gives artists with the budget an undeniable advantage against smaller artists that even listeners don’t realize.Â
Chaotic Good is just a symptom of a greater trend in the music industry that spans decades. These methods just echo the power record companies in the 60s had over what got played on the radio. Heads of record companies, festival organizers, and streaming services all have more of a hand in what we listen to than we think. New tech. Same issue.Â
I believe Kacey Musgraves has many real fans. This article is not to tear her down for using such methods but to instead show the current state of the over-commodified music market. Very rarely will you discover a music artist organically in this era. Hearing a song through the radio might mean a record company paid for it to be played. Concert videos or GRWMs on TikTok could be a silent paid ad. If anything, be skeptical of the music Spotify recommends or the concert video on TikTok, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying the artists you do.Â
It’s definitely hard to swallow when you realize your favorite artist bought their way to your For You page, but that shouldn’t discount their talent and passion for their craft. Even in the commodified art world we live in today, we can still appreciate the energy of Chappell Roan’s performances or the strong lyricism of Doechii.
Finally, while I am not a country fan, Kacey Musgraves puts a lot of heart in her music, and she just happens to be on a TikTok ad, sitting on two bright disco balls.Â
Curious about the list of Chaotic Good’s clientele? Below is the full published list of music artists before it was taken off Chaotic Good’s website. To preface this, the original list is now lost media, so take this list with a grain of salt. Not every artist on this list is part of Chaotic Good’s music psyops. They are only clients that have worked with Chaotic Good.
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/BM30/artists-on-chaotic-good-projects