Rock Fans Are Their Own Worst Enemy

We’ve all seen the digital hysteria that exploded this week: the band Geese is a “psy-op.” A corporate hallucination (I rolled my eyes so hard and far back that I feared they would honestly be stuck for good).

It all started with a WIRED headline, *“The Fanfare Around the Band Geese Actually Was a Psyop,”* which was vapid clickbait at best and music journalistic malpractice at worst. In a rush to “expose” the machinery of the marketing firm Chaotic Good Projects, they failed to do even basic research. No deep dive into the efficacy of the claims made by their founders, no mention of research into the effectiveness of any of their campaigns through actual data. No real receipts at all, just hype. Hmmmm, sounds oddly familiar.

I don’t say this as an industry insider by any means; I say it as a prolific consumer who has literally marinated in the glow of the front row. I have spent my life in the trenches of live music, I’ve survived the mud, heat and less-than-ideal bathroom situations of music festivals. I have freshened up in a cooler (no need to really get into that) and slept in wildly uncomfortable tents just to see my faves.

Lollapalooza

I’ve also watched smaller acts load their own gear in the rain and play their hearts out to a half-empty bar or field. When you see that level of grit up close, you realize how insulting it is for a journalist to dismiss a band’s entire career because of a marketing firm.

In their odd attempt to “uncover” a psy-op, WIRED got absolutely fleeced. They fell for the oldest trick in the book, effectively acting as a free PR arm for a marketing agency looking to prove its own power.

The most insulting part? Geese isn’t a project that appeared out of thin air. The New York Times was writing about them as early as October 2021 with the title: “New York Has a New Band of Buzzy Post-Punk Teens: Geese.” They had already put in the miles and released a critically acclaimed debut years before this “marketing scandal”. They even opened for Jack friggin’ White, the High Priest of Analog Rock himself, who was spotted watching their set while at Coachella last weekend. Guess one of the genres GOATs who literally bans smartphones from his shows because he values raw experience above all else fell for a TikTok marketing campaign? Asinine.

Jack White & Cameron Winter from GEESE

But the real story isn’t the marketing, it’s the reaction. Yes, I’m a fan, so yes, I have some bias. This bias sent me into the comment section abyss and, not surprisingly, I wasn’t surprised at all. So many holier-than-thou reactions to fairly basic digital marketing tactics. Do I like all these tactics? No. Has the music industry always had ‘tactics’? DUH!

If Geese is a “psy-op,” then the greatest bands in history were full-scale psychological warfare operations. Fans who are pearl-clutching about “authenticity” clearly haven’t read their musical history:

• The Rolling Stones: Their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, was the original “Chaotic Good.” He forced the culture by planting the iconic headline: “Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?” A simulated controversy designed to make parents hate them and the kids love them, triggering the same reaction we’re seeing today.
• The Beatles: Press officer Tony Barrow ghostwrote the “personal” columns in The Beatles Monthly to manufacture intimacy. Even more wild? George Harrison became the group’s “master forger,” spending hours practicing the other members’ signatures so he could sign thousands of fan photos they didn’t have time for.
• The Sex Pistols & Vivienne Westwood: They were managed by Malcolm McLaren specifically to sell high-end fashion from his and Vivienne Westwood’s boutique, SEX.

Westwood herself jadedly noted in 2011: “The punk movement … it was just a fashion that became a marketing opportunity for people.”

In the pop world, fans are a phalanx (a word I recently learned the meaning of but have never said out loud and am not entirely sure how to pronounce). The BeyHive, the Beliebers, the Swifties — they are a specialized defense force. While this kind of blind loyalty can feel cultish and the antithesis of great music finds, it cannot be denied that pop fans want their artists to win. They want them to be famous, they want them to thrive and bask in the warmth of popularity.

In the rock and indie world? We have a fickle-to-futility pipeline. One “not amazing” record, or heaven forbid, one viral marketing campaign, and the fandom enters a tailspin. We have this desperate, suffocating need to keep our favourite artists niche. We treat our finds like precious secrets, hoarding their obscurity like a personality trait, then wonder why pop stars have completely colonized the cultural zeitgeist.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. When Queen released Hot Space in the early 80s (an album that leaned into disco), the North American rock establishment and their “loyal” fanbase revolted. They were punished for experimenting. It took their legendary Wembley performance and Freddie Mercury’s eventual and untimely death for that status to be fully restored. Imagine the art we missed out on because a legendary band was being “punished” by fans for simply wanting to try something different.

Then there’s the “nepo baby” card. People point at Geese’s connections as a reason to bin the music, as if “privilege” is some rare bird. Take Inhaler; their lead singer happens to have a pretty famous dad: Bono. Yes, that Bono. Did I automatically dismiss their music? No. Did they have exposure that many bands don’t? Sure. But don’t many of us benefit from the successes of our parents?

The most basic version of privilege is a geographical one. It’s amazing how simply not being born into a malaria-riddled village or a war-torn region gives you an upper hand. To single out a band for their parents’ bank account while we sit comfortably in the geographic lottery of our countries isn’t a critique; it is as myopic as the term “self-made fan.” I wish I were kidding, but that term is actually out there. At first, I honestly thought it was about fans, like actual air-shuffling fans. (Update: eyes still very much rolled).

But none of this matters if we keep torching the very scene we claim to love. If we want rock and indie to survive, we have to stop being so fickle. The most “punk” thing an indie band can do in 2026 is actually survive. These artists deserve to afford a life on their art.

Here is a shameless plug to my whopping 11 followers of the smaller acts I’ve been following these past few years. Acts like Michigander, Wilderado, Dylan LeBlanc, and Flyte. These are just four examples of the MANY who deserve far more attention and really need our love to keep creating.

So stop worrying about whether a band’s rise was “organic” enough for your aesthetic standards. If the music hits, support it. Don’t let your “cool” be the reason your favourite band goes broke.

Some of the acts I’ve seen live presented like a festival lineup poster.