Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - How Bots Boosted Nicki Minaj's MAGA Pivot

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

 Is The Nicki Minaj Bot Scandal the Future of Politics?Support my independent journalism:🙏 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz    🗞️ Buy a paid subscription to my Substack: https://www.usermag.co   The lines between entertainment, celebrity beef, and political propaganda are blurring. A few weeks ago, a POLITICO report sent shockwaves through Stan Twitter and the MAGA internet. The story reported that Nicki Minaj’s sudden pro-Trump pivot was being secretly propped up by an army of tens of thousands of bots. But is this a case of genuine political shifting, or is it the result of "invisible machinery" running beneath the surface of our cultural life?Pop culture commentator Olay Olurinatti joins me to dive deep into the 24-page report from the AI intelligence firm that claims over 18,000 bots were used to amplify Nicki’s conservative messaging. We explore Nicki's history, from her 2012 Mitt Romney praise to her "Black Barbies" resistance era, and unpack what changed and what role the internet, and platform incentives have played. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz       https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0      https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz  https://bsky.app/profile/taylorlorenz.bsky.social   https://twitter.com/taylorlorenz We break down:The "Coordinate Effort" vs. Organic Fandom (The Barbs).The role of Elon Musk’s X aka Twitter in pushing right-wing narratives.The beef between Cardi B’s team and Trump’s digital strategists.How algorithmic preconditioning is shaping the 2026 midterms.How the Right is successfully infiltrating pop culture fandoms.

It's an easier thing to deal with that no, no, no, no, no, no. No one is listening to Nikki Minaj. It's all just bots. Then the reality that, hey, this is really bad. Somebody with a lot of influences using their influence horribly. A few weeks ago, Politico published a story that set Stan Twitter and the MAGA Internet into a nuclear war. The story was based on data from an AI intelligence firm that claimed that Nikki Minaj was

secretly being propped up by tens of thousands of bots amidst her pro-Trump pivot. The allegations caused chaos online with politicians like J.D. Vance and Gavin Newsom weighing in, Trump advisors fighting back and forth, and even Cardi B responding. I have my friend Oleg here, and today we're going to be discussing Politico's Nikki Minaj report, breaking down the bot allegations and their veracity, and unpacking what the whole incident reveals about the invisible machinery that runs beneath the surface of our political and cultural life. Oleg, welcome. Hey, sis. is nice to be here.

I feel like a lot of people, you know, obviously have followed Nikki's rise. We followed her career. She's been in the public eye for a while. But I kind of want to zoom back and just give people the general arc of her MAGA pivot for those who haven't been following as closely. And I want to start with this tweet that she posted, actually back in 2012. It's so funny to remember, but Mitt Romney was running against Obama. And for some reason, she.

kind of seemed to be, like, boosting Mitt Romney. She said that she was, like, potentially voting for her, Mitt Romney. No, she had lyrics. I'm a Republican voting for Mitt Romney. She later used the song Black Barbies to speak out, actually, during the Trump's first administration against calls for mass deportation. But something seems to have, like, unlocked in her, I would say, really in the wake of, like, Charlie Kirk's death in the past couple months.

I don't think that we know Nikki Minaj's true feelings. I don't think we know what that is, and I don't think we know what that is, and I don't think it's really, we're able to truly ascertain it, but I truly think there should be lines that you shouldn't cross. If people have a certain kind of principle, no matter what financial situation you're in, no matter how much you want relevance, no matter how much you want clout, there would be certain things if she was somebody who fundamentally cared about people,

cared about her strongly LGBTQ fan base, if she cared about any of these communities, truly, if her principles were aligned with that, there would be certain things she would not do even for money, even for clout, out of desperation. I don't even think it's about her genuinely, whether or not she loves the Democrats or Republicans or on any moral level. I think it's about who gives her attention, who sues her ego, and who's able to benefit her more.

And I think we happen to be in a moment in time in her career where she's feeling pretty cold. She has financial troubles. She's legal troubles. And I think that that is what we're seeing play out. I agree with you that, like, I don't think this is some secret MAGA kind of tendency necessarily. Again, because of the Black Barbie moment with Trump 1.0, like when it was cool to be resistance, she was going to go along with that. Like she'll kind of just go along with anything.

And right now, like MAGA was somewhat culturally ascendant, I guess, this past fall. And so like she's going to glom on to that. But she's certainly glommed on like pretty hard. Like I mean, I think it was really in the past several months, like really last fall when she really began leaning in. And I think like identifying as a MAGA artist, you know, showing up to like the turning point USA America Fest doing that sit down talk. Like that to me, it's like you're not just like.

doing the Taylor Swift kind of like ambiguous thing of like, am I MAGA, am I not? I don't know. I'll certainly pander to them. I'll sell tickets to them. It's like, oh, I am intentionally aligning myself with this right wing movement. I think that he's on a payroll. I think it's truly that simple. Like, I believe 1,000 percent that she's getting a check to show up in these places. And I think it really speaks to whatever financial situation she's finding herself in, because if you hear her talking at that turning point to USA, if that is not somebody who believes what they're talking about who has a coherent school of thought, like when I hear a When I hear Andrew Tate, I know they believe this bullshit.

When I hear just pearly things, I know that she's struggling to string this together. You know it's an act. And it's the same thing with Nikki. She doesn't even remember the points you can see if she's trying to think it through and trying to just like come up with enough to like give them the breadcrumbs and the dog whistles. But it's not something she's invested in to be able to even like spout off coherently. It only speaks to how bad of a situation she must be in now to be doing this. But I don't believe that she believes anything.

I don't believe that any of it is genuine. I don't think Nikki Minaj woke up one name was like, I'm tired of living in the closet with my maga beliefs. I'm tired of having to be a secret Republican. The time is now. I mean, a lot of what you're talking about and sort of like the paid allegations and stuff. Listen, I believe it.

Like, I don't think people probably show up to America Fest for free. Like, Turning Point especially is known as this like extremely well-funded organization. Of course, this is Charlie Kirk's old, you know, a group that he co-founded. They've got, they've raised especially in the wake of his death, like millions of things. millions and millions of dollars. So do I think they cut her a big check to appear 100%. But the thing that I really want to dig in today is this Politico article that dropped that was like a nuclear

bomb on the internet. Like I don't think you were as online that day because I kept texting you. You were like what? And I texted you like 100 tweets. And I was like, we need to discuss. But there was this article that was published by Politico last month on February 23rd by journalist Jason Biferman. And it was titled Nikki Minaj's Solicester. social media is propped up by thousands of bots analysts find. The subhead reads, an analysis shared with Politico reveals the rap sensations advocacy for conservative causes has been amplified by an army of bots and coordinated activity.

This caused so much controversy online because immediately as soon as Politico of all places, like publish this piece, I think it sort of like validated what a lot of people were feeling already, which is like, this is not authentic. And potentially, one of these right-wing groups is actually paying to inflate her metrics. That doesn't surprise me. First of all, in the year, 26, Twitter is not a legitimate platform.

Let me just start from there from saying Twitter, in and of itself, is owned by a right-wing billionaire troll who was very much so active in putting the right-wing troll we have for president right now. So, like, Twitter is a conspirator. If there's any right wing nonsense going on, Twitter is a part of it. Elon Musk has it in plain sight engineered it to be a website that pushes right wing bullshit

and allows all of this spots and everything to go unchecked. So this to me, this being controversial, like even surprising anybody in 2026 is like, where you been? Well, of course, the entire website is there to do right wing propaganda. So that's not a shocker to me. Honestly, if anything, I think it restores my faith in humanity because, Nick, Nikki Minaj has, I say one of the most, but I legitimately cannot think of a more toxic family. Like, I can't think of one.

I'm saying one of the most. So I say that to say, they're mentally ill. In a way, that's what I've been feeling for so many years. So to me, I think it's better for me to like realize, like, no, no, no, no. There might be some hope. A lot of, like, Nikki Minaj is based as crazy and as stand and obsessed as they are. When it comes to Nikki Minaj, I'm glad to know that there aren't as many just immediately jumping onto a right-wing propaganda pipeline just because she's acts.

them to now. So hearing that, it's botches like great. Maybe there's some hope. Well, let's go through the allegations that were made in this report because Politico actually linked directly to the report, which is this 24 page report that I think sort of like outlines effectively kind of where they see manipulation happening on her social media. So the first is around last fall. Basically, they note that around November 2025, she was not really engaging in political content, but suddenly there was this shift. That shift coincided. with these moments where suddenly the conversation online and Twitter specifically started to like amplify messaging. So this is when she's sort of talking about Donald Trump, MAGA. She gave a speech at

the UN where she thanked Trump, all leading up, of course, to December 25th when Erica Kirk brought her on stage. And they put the bots in several different kind of categories. So they show basically like it's not just like what you might think of in the music world where people just buy a lot of bots to just like be synch-a-fantic and like fudge your replies and be like, we love you, queen, whatever. It was really kind of more of like a political campaign operation where you had these like amplifiers, you had these sort of like top talkers, you had these contributors and you had these other kind of groups where effectively they sort of exhibited inauthentic behavior.

Now they even went as so far as to name a bunch of handles in this report and we're going to get into the responses because some of the people in this report came out and were like, wait a minute, I'm not a bot. I'm not a bot. So like, why am I in this report? But I think it just shows, like, that whoever you believe, whoever's behind it, whether it's paid, whether it's not paid, you cannot argue that since she's pivoted to MAGA, she has been receiving what seems like inauthentic sort of boosts online. The report claims that over 18,000 bots were used, and 33% of all profiles interacting with Nikki Minaj's political posts were assessed as fake. This level of inauthentic participation is exceptionally high. The report says when compared to established

benchmarks for organic social media discourse where fake account presence typically ranges between seven and 10%. The fake profiles also did not operate independently or sporadically. Instead, they were consistently active alongside authentic users posting during similar timeframes and adopting engagement rhythms that closely mirrored organic behavior. This pattern suggests a deliberate attempts to ingrate into genuine conversations, increasing the credibility and visibility of amplified content. The scale of influence, by the way, was particularly evident the report says on December 26, which is right after she appeared at the Turning Point Conference, when fake profiles generated 56% of all comments on Nikki Minaj's political posts. On that day, fake accounts not only

participated in the discussion, but dominated the conversation materially shaping both its volume and momentum. Can you, based on the report, explain, like, the type of amplification and what sort of conversation, again, according to this report, were they amplifying around Nikki? According to the report, they analyzed, like, tens of thousands of different accounts, different accounts and different engagement on Nikki Minaj's post, particularly from fall to now. And they realize that a lot of it is what seems to be, if not even outright bots, a coordinated effort to create this kind of positive, like, engagement around her. I think there's, there's an aspect of it being bots and there's an aspect of being stands who coordinate and work together in a function that's so hard to believe that it

appears bot like to see that to believe that there are these many, many people at home this obsessed with Nikki, that they're like, at this time this, make sure we show this much positive and love for on these posts, which to me is consistent with like stand-up and the kind of like barbs and audience that Nikki has always had. The type of inauthentic activity as well that this report found, would found that the conversation and the content really focused on four different buckets are four different types of posts that were being leveraged to push Niki Minaj. And that is this angle of Christians in Nigeria, that Christians are being persecuted in Nigeria and I guess Maga has to save them.

I don't know. This is something that she has talked about a lot and there was evidence of manipulation around that. Support for general conservative figures. Opposition to gender transition. So there was a lot of bot activity boosting conversation. You mentioned that thing that she said on stage with Erica Kirk about sort of like boys will And then criticism of Democratic actors.

And actually, this criticism of Democratic actors thing, I want to dig into a little bit. Because when you look at some of the posts from these people that are boosting Nikki, it's not necessarily clear that they're bots. And a lot of this criticism of Democratic actors, it is like, I think, fair criticism, actually, of people like Gavin Newsom. This Democrat thing kind of raised my eyebrow a little bit just because I was like, what is the deal with Sia bra? and I might be pronouncing it, Sayabra. It's basically the firm that issued this report. And when I started to look into them, their name was actually pretty familiar

because they've issued previous reports and press releases specifically around the genocide in Gaza. They are an Israeli intelligence and AI firm that creates these reports mostly as marketing for their own surveillance products. And they've previously claimed that a bunch of very legitimate people criticizing the genocide in Palestine

were bots. There's also like people in this report like Dom Luker, who is a well-known disinformation actor. He's bad. He's pushed a lot of like really actually anti-Semitic stuff, problematic stuff. He's a right-wing poster. But he's not a bot. And when this report dropped, you started to see a lot of this reaction online, especially from the Stan armies that are against Nikki Minaj to be like, wait a minute. Who made this report? This is BS. And that's when Alex Brousowitz gets involved. He is. basically the main influencer liaison for Trump. He is the one that is sort of like the architect

of Trump's new digital media strategy. And he very quickly starts getting into beef. He's the one who started implying that the Cardi B's and Cardi B's team is somehow associated with this report coming out. Yes. So he posts that Cardi B's agent Mike G at UTA had recently been added to Saibara's brand and entertainment council.

He also pointed to David Wander, who's the chief digital officer at Jay Z's Rock Nation, an entertainment company that represents Megan the Stallion as another Cybrara council figure with ties to the company. It sounded insane. Like he was tweeting that it's journalistic malpractice and totally unethical that Jason Bferman failed to disclose that not only is the company that did the bot analysis of Nikki Minaj's partnered with Cardi B's agent, they're also partnered with an executive at Jayz's Rock Nation. And this is when things start to go off the rails, because like the fact that like all entertainment executives are like one degree of separation from each other is just not evidence of any sort of wrongdoing.

And it's just a distraction. It's to say people from like instead of looking at that and focusing on like this issue and what it's really about and something political and like these actual different things that Nibbenaj is advocating around and or even if you wanted to be critical to be critical of this like company in the direction of what you talked about like oh whether or not this company has ties to Israel whether they've previously done this or done this or they've previously done this or done. They don't want the conversation to be there. It's let's move it over to like regular entertainment stand wars so you don't ever address those things. And now we're just fighting about whether or not this is Cardi versus Nikki and whether or not some conspiracy to make Nikki look bad as opposed to how the machine actually works behind the scenes. Because I think that's what it really is. It's really about how these different machines and how misinformation and disinformation and everything like travels online and the different intentions or goals of a lot of these different places. I think this is something that we're starting to see more and more. of, unfortunately, where like, I think everybody assumes that like everything is like 4D chess.

Even you had Cardi B literally speaking out, giving commentary, being like, I'm not involved with this. This is a data company that has tons of investors, including my agent, who is like some big time entertainment guy who probably has his hands in 50 other companies. He had nothing to do with this report, which is probably made by some PR person and blasted out to reporters and Politico picked it up and like basically leave me out of this or I'm going to sue you. Bruce Switz then like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like,

blood in the water, he's doubling down. And then you have these Stan armies like warring, arguing that like, no, the other side is manipulating the internet. And it's really not that deep. And you are correct, but stand-am is its own discussion to be had. Because I think that is like a part of this conversation, right? Like there's a part of exploring like who's doing this report, what are their intentions, how much of it is even true, right?

I think that's one conversation. There's another conversation I think to be had is how stand-em affects sane, rational people to the point where a stand- does look like a bot. I can see how you can interpret a stand to be. Surely, this aren't these many people, you know what I mean? Because stand wars are, they're normal, they're commonplace. Like, it was easy for him to distract people by making it. Okay, Cardi being Hardy being Steam because then it just becomes the next chapter and what is a very long Stan war between Nikki and Cardi fans. I know. And it's easier to make this like seem like some proxy war. But I think this is just something that we're saying online. Like, for instance, I think that people several years ago learned that the internet is being manipulated.

And they're correct. You're right. Like Elon Musk is amplifying the internet. He's warping it in various ways. There are bot armies that are shaping our political discourse. There was something that Bridget Todd actually said on her podcast a while ago. And she was talking about how like, it's almost more powerful for somebody to think that bots are involved in something than to even be involved because you're able to like discredit them. And it's like, do I think that Nikki's stuff is boosted by bots? Sure.

Do I think that like turning point maybe boosted her tweet a little bit in certain instances? maybe, like maybe some right wing person did. But as you mentioned, Stan armies are always subject to manipulation. There have been record companies that have been engaging in this in years. It's not like any of this is new or had any like real meaningful effect on her career or social following writ large. Like even all of this, like if you take this report at face value, which I wouldn't. I'm a little skeptical of their analysis.

But still, it's only on Twitter. And Twitter is like the least important social network, you know, when you're a pop star. And that's true, which I think speaks to like where an. Nicki Minaj's career is at right now. Like at the end of the day, like, you're only as good as what you lasted. You know what I mean? In terms of entertainment and music and whatever have you. And right now, Nikki Minaj is essentially put her own career for what she's supposed to be known for

and supposed to be doing on ice and has made herself like, oh, I'm a political figure. I'm being this. I'm doing that. This is what I'm about. And so what it will have an effect on is her reputation, you know? To me, what's so interesting about this story is that, like, I do kind of think that this report is bullshit. bullshit and I do think that she was probably boosted by some modicum of bots probably has been for a while potentially even like her record agency like I don't even know that they're

necessarily like that invested in boosting her politically although maybe some are again Elon Musk it's like a right wing website or whatever but ultimately like whatever little bit of boost that she got like four times on Twitter is nothing to her broader reach and I think it's interesting how quickly people jumped on this story in this attempt to kind of like discredit her because I think just even the allegations that like your audience is fake these days like can end up having more of a meaningful impact than you would think. And I guess like I'll say like what bothers me about it too is like as somebody that reports a lot on like fan dynamics online, everyone is always accusing the other person of being fake. Like people

are accusing Cardi B of buying followers or whatever. People are accusing Nikki of using bots. And it's like the entire industry, the music industry generally is so fake like TikTokers are accepting money, you know, to like promote artists that they're not disclosing. Like, it's all kind of a charade. I think it's cope in general. I think you see it across the board, like when it comes to the internet. Like if someone's complaining about something, about anything, it doesn't even have to be about like a person, a celebrity, just like a sentiment they see expressed a lot online or they

experience the response is always. That's just the internet. Those are bots. Anytime. Like, I can think of hate trains and hate campaigns in my life, different things I experience as a regular phenomenon in the internet and people's responses always. Those are bots. Those are probably bots.

You're probably arguing with the 12 years. It's probably not even real. It's blah, blah, blah. It's this way to diminish with, like, the significance or harm of anything that's happening. So I think it's harder for people to reconcile. Like, hey, Nikki Minage is somebody who has been very powerful and very prominent for a long time.

She has a huge, massive fan base that hang on to her every word and are committed to supporting her. So the reality is, if she decides to make a right-wing pivot, it will have an effect and influence on a bunch of people. And I think people rather believe it's an easier thing to deal with. That no, no, no, no, no. It's all fake.

Nikki Minaj is just completely irrelevant. Nobody gives a fuck. She's no one is listening to Nikki Minaj. It's all just bots. Then the reality that, hey, this is really bad. Somebody with a lot of influences using their influence horribly. That's literally exactly kind of the point that I felt like. Like, I just, I'm like, not that she's not an irrelevant loser that's on the decline.

I don't want to, like, act like that. But I do think it is bad, you know, the sort of what she's doing. I also think it's really insidious the way that the Trump administration continues to engage in like these pop culture moments and these like artist beefs basically and insert themselves and kind of basically make these like fan battles into like political things because I feel like that's also something that they're having. I mean, J.D. Vance was tweeting about it. Gavin Newsom was tweeting about it.

And it's just like, wait, this is actually like a pretty toxic way to engage in politics. Like why are we making politics into like Stan Wars? That's probably like the worst type of like discussion to be having around sort of like our political system. Yeah, you're absolutely right, but it's also consistent, right? Like, Donald Trump is a fucking reality star. I've said for years that what makes the Republicans so effective or the right is so effective in converting people to their ideology is that they downloaded onto people when they don't realize it's happening in pop culture. It's happening when all these kids are watching a bunch of right-wing fucking streamers that they may be signed on to watch because they were playing

games or talking about fun shit or things that was in the next thing you know, that's why Aidan Ross and them have Donald Trump sitting there and all these different people. And so they're being forced-fed it in all these different ways. So here you got all these people who wouldn't necessarily go jump for a political discussion or to sign on to explicit ideological talks. But what they will sign on to is entertainment and their fans and their people and their and their faves and whoever they're champion. And so when that goes, there's this entertainment world that they entered under the guys

of being a part of being fans, being stands, entertainment, music becomes. It's like it morphs so quickly. They don't even realize that now they're championing these things. And it makes sense. Because so much of what is Stan ideology is like losing yourself to the fandom, like being so like obsessed with this person that you're going along with whatever.

And so much of being a stand is about like contorting yourself, you know, trying to justify whatever they do. That's the perfect sitting duck vulnerable population to say, oh, well now just twist yourself to defend these politics. And the next thing you know, they're embracing all these like political ideologies and they don't realize it.

So many people who are right-wing do not identify as right-wing. They do not see themselves politically. They'll tell you, I'm not political. I'm not even blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the shit that they think is right-wing ideology because it's fed to them in a bunch of other different arenas without them knowing. They don't realize when they're watching their beloved Joe Rogan

and Theo Vaughn and all of these people, like, they're all fucking right-wing figures. They're all right-wing figures. And it's like, oh, surprise, they're interviewing Trump. They're voting for Trump. And it's like, it wasn't a surprise if you understand that that's what's happening, but that's why they're getting them. So it makes sense to me.

Yeah, I think it's also like basically like instigating this massive kind of internet controversy and reigniting the like Cardi, Nikki Beef, et cetera is like a very convenient distraction where people are not talking about policies like you mentioned earlier. It's like we're not discussing ice ripping off the, you know, people off the streets or Gaza or these other sort of more important issues and people are just being sort of placated by this like the drama of it all and the gossip of it all and like waiting. I mean, I myself was guilty.

It's like you're refreshing the feed like, oh my God, is she going to respond? Who's going to respond next? I really liked what was written in the FWIW newsletter, which is written by this girl Chanda. She wrote about the whole sort of bot controversy, and she said, this is a preview of how the 2026 midterms will be fought online, algorithmic preconditioning, shaping feeds, months, even years in advance,

so that certain narratives feel normal, popular, and culturally inevitable. While Democrats budget for boosted posts and consultant produced videos only during election season, the right is playing the long, game and has already infiltrated the algorithm. Republicans post year round go viral more often than Democrats their messaging is woven into fandoms lifestyle content and online discourse so stealthily that it often just doesn't register as politics at all it feels

like a vibe. I think that's like a hundred percent accurate and kind of like the point that you made as well but I think that's also why this story went so viral is because number one it was published in like Politico like a political news outlet and it was like here is direct evidence that there was actually political implications instead of like political actors looking to warp like political discourse. And so it just felt like sort of like the hood being pulled up a little bit on some of these like Republican tactics that often we all know take place, but they're really hard to prove. I think from my perspective, I just wish people saw why it's effective.

When Nicky Minage first started doing this pivot, I was on Francesca Fiorentini's YouTube, who I love, shout to Francesca in the Bituation Room. When I was on there, it was live and we were talking about she wanted to talk about Nikki Minaj, but it was when she first started doing the stuff around Nigeria. And there were these people in the live, like, why are we talking about this? This isn't important. Why are we talking about this?

And they just kept doing that the whole time. And I think that is like kind of our greatest disadvantages. Hey, Republicans in the right have tapped into this. And I think that is why they have dominated the culture wars and all this ideologically for all these years now. It's because it permeates into everything we do. But so many people on our side of the fence, like, and I mean the large side of defense,

not just like liberals leftists, yada, yada, yeah, everybody. Over here, right, where like everybody over here, there's this kind of idea that like, we're above it. We shouldn't be talking about entertainment and all the different things and the different avenues that do matter and do affect how people become politically involved. Like, it does matter. You're like, why are we talking about Nikki Minaj

and Nikki Minaj making a right-wing pivot? Because it's a big fucking deal. She is an influence of millions of people. And she's outshed spreading conservative propaganda around Nigeria and claiming there's a Christian genocide in Nigeria. That has real implications. There's a reason why they're using these people

to manufacture, support. But what happens is sometimes I think we're left in this position as advocates or messengers or journalists and all these different people when people decide that's not important. Don't address that as important. Like when people wanted to like sound the alarm on like the Joe Rogans and Theo Vons and why you should care about this manifest face. It is a distraction. Like I do want to acknowledge that like, yes, I totally agree with you. Like I think the left generally like doesn't, you know, engage in this entertainment stuff very much. But like I do think that like the freak out about this specific.

like was was sort of a distraction and they're able to just consistently like the manipulation on the right is the fact that they're consistently able to like dominate the narrative and manufacture these viral moments whatever you know 18,000 bots or whatever boosted Nikki over the course of five months last year is nothing compared to the mega viral controversy that this like bot report story like caused and that was able to generate this whole new news cycle that galvanized her base even further. And like that's, I guess like, that's where their power lies. It's not that they're like buying fake bots to like manufacture popularity. It's that they are able to like generate this conversation so consistently and so effectively that like gets people involved and watching.

And I think that's kind of like the real manipulation that we see. Yeah. No, I'm not, I'm not disputing that. What I'm saying is not recognizing what what makes Republicans powerful how they are doing things is a mistake. And very often people are telling themselves, this doesn't matter. You don't need to, and like, it might not matter inherently of what it is or these people, but at the end of the day, they're doing it for a reason. They're having massive influence. So if when people are trying to point that out why this is a bad thing, what it is that they're trying to accomplish and what is the larger, like, step back from Nikki Minaj, look at the larger apparatus as to what's happening. And people's response is like, it's box, it's fake.

It doesn't matter. It's celebrity nonsense. Nickies, you know what I mean? Whatever, blah, blah, Like, that is how, like, the next thing you know you blink and there's this massive influence that they have. That's what I'm saying is sometimes we dismiss the efficacy of these different approaches by telling ourselves to go back to the why people wanted to eat up the idea that it's bots. It's because, oh, if it's boss, if it's fake, there's nothing to do. There's nothing to address. And I think that's why people prefer that, that approach, that response to it. Yeah. Well, it's also just this, like, very, like, emotionally resonant narrative to say, yes, that person that I don't like, they're totally fake.

they're propped up by bots. It's all fake. It's all nonsense, whatever. You want that to be true. And it probably is true to a certain extent. Like, Nikki is being propped up by right wing wackos. But I don't think like 18,000 bots did that. I think, like you said, it's more like she's getting a lot of money probably behind the scenes from these companies, from these, you know, from these Trump organizations that are having her speak at their event. And that is probably incredibly lucrative. One other thing I think that's interesting about how all of this went down to is that the right used it to further discrerect. a mainstream media outlet, a political news outlet that's actually done really good accountability journalism on the Trump administration. And they're claiming like, oh, Politico's fake news. At one point, they were claiming that like Politico coordinated with complex and Cardi B, of course, to like attack, you know, to do this attack on Nikki. And it's just so ridiculous to imagine that like Politico would coordinate their editorial calendar with conflicts at all. But again, this firm sends out these reports as PR. Politico happened to write it up.

It's not that deep. And even if you don't think it's true or I think it's true, whatever, Politico is a legitimate news outlet, and it's crazy just, like, I think, how the right was able to, like, weaponize it in that way as well to kind of be, like, look at the media once again who trusts the media. I think, like, at this way, for me, I'm like, the right, the Republicans, they're, like,

I don't think have a, like, one shred of integrity. If fake news means anything to you coming out of the mouth of the right, like, I don't know what to tell you at this. I don't even know, like, how to address that or engage that. But what I will say as far as, But I guess I just find interested in this my own thing. I don't think it's Turning Point USA or like Nikki Minaj's team or something or whatever that are responsible for these.

If there were bots or anything like that or whatever was happening, because the reality is that if you're paying for somebody, you're paying for somebody's influences. You obviously believe that they have, you're trying to get something back from them. I'm not going to pay somebody for their influence if I believe they don't have it and I need to now pay to prop them up. So I don't think that that is what is happening.

I think Twitter and all these websites are owned by a bunch of, like, right-wing billionaires with their own fucking agenda who've broken the fucking website and all kind of like nonsense goes afoot, but I don't think that's what's happening. I think people like the bots nonsense. They like the story because like I said, they can dismiss it and then it becomes like a stand-worthing

and that's funner. Like I do intellectually understand we're manufacturing consent, like what Nikki Minaj is there to do and like, you know, get more support or whatever thing. I just don't even really understand why it's necessary. Like at this point, like I feel like the right, I'm like, what do you think, Taylor,

like the right stance to gain by Nikki Minajee. Yeah, like why? Why would you even want her around? Like, you're empowered. I think they will always struggle with marginalized communities who they oppress, right? And so I think, like, if they can get another big black celebrity on board, especially one, you know, Cardi B has been more active in politics, too, like, coming out in support of Jasmine Crockett, like, you know, she's boosted Democrats.

So, like, if they can sort of have this counter to that. But the whole bot thing feels very 2018. Like, this is actually not even how internet manipulation works. anymore. Again, it's mostly through organic means and specifically also just like clip farming accounts. Like when I see these campaigns, like there was a clip farming campaign that ran, you know, around Erica Kirk after Charlie's death where they were, you know, paying people to boost and post positive videos of Erica Kirk. And these are all like seemingly organic videos that are appearing on meme pages. And it's like that's how influence is sort of built. It's much more subtle.

Like buying a bunch of bots like on Twitter, maybe that would have worked like 10 years ago. But I don't even think it like does that much now because Twitter is such a cesspool. Twitter is not today what it was like at its most influential or whatever. Obviously a shit ton of people on Twitter X, Y, Z. So I'm not ever going to take that away. But I would say that the majority of who is really like going out and supported Nikki Minaj's music and the majority of whatever that base is probably Instagram people. Like to be honest, which is why she's on Twitter acting a fool, but her Instagram is deactivated since all this shit happened because it's where the truth is most likely lie and who's not going for. whatever. So to me, regardless of whatever, like, support, like the appearance of support or not or

whatever that's really, like, drummed up on Twitter is not, not the end-all, be-all, or what even truly goes to affect their career. Like, if you look, there's a reason why places like the shade room that, like, that, that posts a lot of right-wing bullshit and like the Nicki Minaj's and these kind of pivots, don't post that stuff. Like, if you look, I always do this. Whenever Nikki Minaj and Kanye West are going, acting a fool and going on right-wing nonsense, you wouldn't know it if you check the shade room. So I think that... That's why they were calling it the page room. And so I'm saying, you know what I mean?

Like, I don't think her career doesn't live or die by Twitter. But Instagram matters a lot more for her and the base that she serves, which is why she deactivated that. Which was actually so, I mean, the shade room is a good example. It was so interesting to see, like, how these digital media outlets covered that are leads like celebrity driven digital media. Because you can tell, like, what allegiance does they have and don't have. Some of them are so sort of intertwined with like the talent agency.

world. Like, they don't want to piss off that UTA guy, you know, that ultimately is on the board of that or whatever. So they're, like, not publishing it or as you said, they're not covering it or they're covering in a certain way. And like, there is just a lot more of that backroom dealings. And I think that's how power really operates online and influence operates. It's not just like, oh, we bought 20,000 bots and now she got more retweets on this. Yeah, exactly. You know what it is? Like to what you were speaking of, it's a creation of hypervisibility, which is something I like how it functions in general, like in, not even just like when there's a specific propaganda campaign,

but just like a design to make certain people seem more relevant, seem more important, seem more hot. It's just about putting them on the timeline more. That's what it's about. It's like hypervisibility. It's like you'll suddenly not be thinking about a celebrity or a creator or whatever have you. And then they'll start appearing more on your timeline. Now you're everyone, you're seeing them and you're talking about it.

And you perceive them as being hotter than they've ever been, whether or not it's true or not. It's just about visibility and what's in your face. So yeah, it's not about, like, the appearance of affirmation and support on this occasional post there and there that has more likes. It's about how much I'm increasing. I'm putting you in the face of people who may like you and perceive you as being everywhere. So, yeah. And this is kind of the best publicity that Nikki's gotten in years. I hate it.

But, like, she is, like, we're talking about her. So it's like, oh. But I'll never listen on another motherfucking song. Spotify do not recommend me nothing from this gal. Nothing. Yeah, she's going to be performing at, like, I don't know, some, like, star-spangled banner at, like, the America's anniversary or something like that. Going at Nikki Minaj concert after, like, from this, like, going forward, like, you've got to be ashamed to yourself. Oleg, thank you so much for joining me to discuss all of this today.

Thank you for having me, since it was fun. All right, that's it for this week's episode of Power User. If you like the show, please, please support me on Patreon via the link below or buy a paid subscription to my substack newsletter at usermag.co. That's usermag.com. On my substack, I do a biweekly roundup of everything that I'm reading and following online. You can also get my newsletter on Patreon where I do bonus content and a monthly Q&A live stream. I have no long-term advertisers or sponsors for this podcast. So seriously, every single dollar of your support makes such a meaningful difference. I'll be back next Wednesday with a brand new episode of Power User. See you then.