Online chatter about the Democratic National Convention reached a fever pitch on Thursday night. Could young Americans finally be expressing their interest in politics? Would it signal a massive turnout at the polls in November?
Answers to those questions are still up in the air because what most people were debating was whether or not Beyoncé was going to make a surprise appearance at the United Center in Chicago on the same night that Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president.
The rumor is speculated to have started with a post from an anonymous X user, which has since been deleted. The tweet read, “If you thought the Oprah surprise was big, just wait.”
Suddenly, multiple X accounts were excitedly sharing the posts in a similar vein: “I’ve been sworn to secrecy, but you don’t want to miss the DNC tonight,” a verified X user @Angry_Staffer wrote around 1:30 p.m. ET. “There is a scheduled gap in tonight’s DNC schedule that the special guest is only known by a handful of people,” another tweet published almost 20 minutes later.
Big X accounts like media personality Brian Krassenstein, who has 860,000 X followers, joined in the speculation. Krassenstein said he heard there was a “major surprise” planned for the night.
White House political director Emmy Ruiz posted an emoji of a bee at around 4:30 p.m. ET — a commonly known symbol referencing Beyoncé’s fan base, the “Beyhive.” HuffPost deputy editor Philip Lewis, who has 420,000 followers, retweeted it. Ruiz later wrote that her 6-year-old was responsible for it. (Ruiz did not return Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment.)
Suddenly national publications like the Independent, the Wall Street Journal and The Hill were covering the hype, with TMZ even claiming to confirm the speculation at 7:54 p.m. ET.
Internet sleuths started to piece parts together to rationalize the rumor. The Chicks, who sang the national anthem at the Democratic convention Thursday, are fellow Texans and have collaborated with Beyoncé in the past. Pink once did a Pepsi commercial with Beyoncé and she was performing that night. Music was already a central theme of the week.
Plus, Beyoncé has been politically involved in the past, endorsing other Democratic candidates like former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Biden. She sang at Obama’s inaugural ball in 2009 and at his inauguration in 2013. The Harris campaign has used Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” at events. On paper, it could make sense.
But it wasn’t true. Beyoncé’s rep told the Hollywood Reporter that the singer was never scheduled to appear at the DNC. Her publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, posted on Instagram with the caption, “At home watching and anticipating the VP’s historic speech. Focus on the win and register to vote. Do not report rumors.”
So how did a rumor about one of the world’s biggest pop stars attending a major political event spin so wildly out of control?
Pop culture journalist Sharon Carpenter told Yahoo Entertainment it was “a perfect storm.” Oprah Winfrey had a surprise appearance at the DNC the night before and there are few celebrities as powerful or more powerful than Winfrey. Beyoncé is one of them.
“Social media is always rampant with rumors about celebrities and the bigger the star, the faster they spread,” Carpenter said. “There’s also the pressure to get ‘news’ out there faster than anyone else in order to get the most traction and that’s where credibility and facts also fall through the cracks.”
Social media also gives celebrities the ability to address the public immediately. One of the consequences is if a celebrity does not shut down a rumor in a timely way, it becomes harder to control the narrative.
Caché McClay, who covers Beyoncé for the USA Today network, told Yahoo Entertainment that it took Beyoncé’s team around 10 hours to address the speculation. The anticipation during that time only grew and grew.
“Up until the final portion of the programming late last night, there were no reports or signs that Beyoncé wouldn’t be there,” McClay said. “Naturally, the idea became really convincing.”
Journalists like McClay and Carpenter have to rely on sources and fact-checking to publish stories. When it comes to social media, there are no rules or accountability.
“We have a lot of ‘news influencers’ these days who may look and sound great and compelling on-camera, they can tell a good story in an entertaining way, but may not know the first thing about how to fact-check,” Carpenter said. “Nowadays, traditional media can be very influenced by the hot conversations on social media and they may discuss them on their platforms as a way to get viewers interested.”
It’s part of a larger issue of misinformation online. Whether Beyoncé shows up to the DNC is not necessarily as immediately damaging as other issues like AI-generated deepfakes, but it needs to be understood that conspiracy theories — big or small — have warped social media. Studies have shown that social media is getting closer to eclipsing traditional media as the go-to source for Americans to get their news.
“Users have a hard time differentiating who they should or shouldn’t believe,” Carpenter said. “Social media is the wild, wild, west of misinformation and people are rarely held accountable these days for spreading false info.”
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