Spoiler alert: Despite social media reports indicating otherwise, Beyoncé did not perform at the Democratic National Convention and was never scheduled to.
Those present on the floor of the Democratic National Convention last month shared that rumors flew around all week of a surprise guest scheduled to perform. According to tweets and social media posts from August 22, there was a gap in the convention schedule and limited people had any knowledge of what would fill that gap. And, according to rumors, a certain pop star’s plane had touched down in Chicago, where the convention was held.
Other guesses about the surprise guest’s identity? Former presidents George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter were floated as options, as well as 2012 Republican Presidential Nominee, Mitt Romney, and of course, Taylor Swift. Adding fuel to the fire, TMZ reported Beyoncé would perform and Emmy Ruiz, White House political director, tweeted a singular, cryptic bee emoji, interpreted to confirm the Internet’s suspicions.
Ruiz posted later that the bee was shared by her 6-year-old, and TMZ was forced to retract its reports when Beyoncé did not, in fact, show up to perform. When a groundbreaking performance didn’t take place, fans took to the Internet to urge, and, in some cases, harass, Beyoncé to show up in Chicago. Though the origins of the rumor are still unclear, some speculate that it was started in order to prompt a larger population to turn on their TVs and boost viewer numbers.
According to Nielsen, there were approximately 20 million viewers during each of the first few nights of the convention. The last night drew 26.2 million viewers, but that increase in viewers cannot only be attributed to the Beyoncé rumor. That night, Kamala Harris was scheduled to give her acceptance speech, which potentially compelled the jump in viewership.
Internet rumors frequently have real-world consequences. Last year, following what seemed like months of speculation, Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, was forced to reveal a cancer diagnosis to end the rumors that Prince William was cheating on her. Even after the Royal Family posted a video of Middleton, the Internet still speculated about her condition and her husband’s relationships.
Pregnancy rumors are some of the most common Internet scandals that grip our world. Kylie Kelce recently took to TikTok to comment on this, following multiple articles during last year’s football season, declaring her pregnant. In the video, she shared about a previous miscarriage saying, “I do not take getting pregnant or trying to get pregnant lightly.” Kelce continued to say that parents should be the first to announce a pregnancy, rather than media speculating on such a sensitive topic.
Rumors like Beyoncé’s performance at the DNC, especially when confirmed by supposedly reputable news sources, can go so far as to be categorized as disinformation, false information shared in order to sway public opinion; 67% of Americans have encountered false information on social media and 10% have knowingly shared that false information, found a 2021 Statistica study. These rumors and disinformation do not just impact the lives of celebrities online — they could be impacting your life, too, in the form of political manipulation.
“Fake news is becoming a ‘life-and-death’ matter and eroding trust and respect with each other, which is a backbone of any civilized society,” Min-Seok Pang, Temple University associate professor of management information services, said.
In 2022, the Pew Research Center found that Americans saw more negative influence from social media than any of the other 18 advanced economies surveyed. Despite a higher percentage of people in other countries saying that the use of social media has contributed positively to their societies, they also have seen that, “in particular, it has led to manipulation and division within societies.” 84% of those people think that the ability to access social media has made people more susceptible to manipulation by false information and rumors. These statistics seemed to have stayed relatively consistent, even into 2024.
Beyond forcing Princess Kate to share a cancer diagnosis before she was ready — something that should be reason enough to convince against sharing false information on social media — the world has already seen even larger impacts of the social media rumor mill throughout the earliest spread of Covid-19. With so much distrust and disinformation circulating about the disease, not only was there a rise in psychological distress, there was also a rise in the employment of dangerous health practices like bleaching food and applying household cleaners to skin.
Though we learn from a young age how harmful it is to gossip IRL, it seems that those lessons don’t also translate to social media, a place that could show equally harmful effects of gossiping. And while calling it “gossip” might seem silly, because of the nature of the Internet, that gossip has had these real-world impacts. Really, gossip like Kylie Kelce pregnancy rumors and Beyoncé’s DNC non-performance, is disinformation as harmful as the notion that you needed to bleach your food before bringing it into your house during the height of Covid-19.
Some social media companies have begun to address these issues in their platforms. X, for example, has instituted “Community Notes.” Users can fact-check information published, and can also include sources for their fact-checks.
But the issue of Internet mis- and disinformation is a problem that will only become more prevalent as social media continues to develop, even with small adjustments like Community Notes — and the ability that disinformation has to sway public opinion will only increase as those with large social media presences realize they can use disinformation to their advantage.
If this growth in disinformation goes unchecked, we could see more and more negativity spreading online, especially on social media. For Beyoncé, the furious tweeting about her lack of appearance at the DNC has luckily died down, but the damage has been done and a sense of distrust has been sewn. Really, only the future knows what the long-term implications will be.
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