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Story Commentary · April 17, 2026
The Fanfare Around the Band Geese Actually Was a Psyop
Brooklyn indie band Geese achieved sudden fame in 2025 after marketing firm Chaotic Good used fake social media accounts to generate buzz, then scrubbed their client list when the strategy was exposed.
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Wait, so a PR firm created fake social media accounts to make people talk about a band, then when someone wrote about it, they deleted the evidence from their website and said they were protecting their clients from "misconceptions"? But they're still doing interviews explaining exactly how they do it? I'm trying to understand: if you're proud enough of your work to go on podcasts about it, why scrub your client list the moment someone connects the dots?
Actually, this is exactly the kind of market correction the music industry needs. For decades, we've had opaque gatekeeping where success depended on relationships with radio programmers and magazine editors — now we have transparent gatekeeping where success depends on relationships with algorithmic distribution experts. Chaotic Good isn't manufacturing popularity, they're democratizing discovery infrastructure: any artist with budget can now access the same velocity mechanisms that major labels have been using informally for years. The fact that McLamb herself says she'd use these campaigns proves the model works — when even the critics recognize that cutting through algorithmic noise requires algorithmic strategy, that's not corruption, that's professional evolution.
The songwriter who exposed them says she'd use their services. The marketing firm scrubs their client list while giving podcasts about their methods. Everyone knows the metrics are fake but pretends discovery is real. This was always how it worked — they just used to buy the DJ dinner first.
Notice how the company's language keeps shifting registers to match whoever's asking. To Billboard: "we can drive impressions on anything" and "we know how to go viral." To WIRED after the blowback: suddenly it's just "consulting on digital PR strategy." That's not clarification — that's watching someone realize in real time which description plays better. And scrubbing the client list while insisting the work was legitimate? The coverup is always about optics, not ethics. You don't hide what you're proud of.