The Empress' New Clothes

On the Propaganda effect of entertainment media, the difference between Visibility and Representation, and the emptiness of Witchcore through Florence and the Machine "Everybody Scream" music video

Last week youtube pushed to me Florence and the Machine’s latest music video “Everybody Scream” and most witches in my digital neighbourhood reposted it with amazed descriptions of “the witchiest thing I’ve ever seen”. Awesome! Isn’t visibility so important? We see ourselves in Media and we feel part of society and culture, isn’t that amazing?

In my latest video I do part commentary, part media analysis and part rant about this music video, and secondarily about the lyrics of the song “Everybody Scream”, because it seemed a piece of media that lent itself incredibly well to explain the difference between the Aesthetics that empty symbols (signifiers) of their original meaning (signified) and just want to give us a “mood”, a “vibe” rather than a message. Aesthetics usually come from a culture/subculture, plenty of times from marginalised groups, and are easily brought to mainstream media exactly because, once you empty them of their meaning of origin, you make it less controversial. If it doesn’t have a message there’s nothing to be pro or against, but there’s stuff Capitalism can sell you to feel like you too can embody that “vibe” in the form of: outfits, objects, merchandise and indeed… Music.

Disclaimer: I used to work in the music industry. I have a personal soft spot for Florence Welch because I followed the beginning of her career closely and at times I worked close-ish to her (almost two decades ago). I made this premise in the naïve belief that people who feel a parasocial relationship with her would understand my critique was in no way ill intentioned, but as you can imagine, that hope led to a mixed bag of results.

The point of semiotics as the study of symbols (in media in this case) aims exactly at that: analysing a piece of communication, regardless of the author’s intention, just based on the symbols and their associated values and meaning within its current sociocultural context. Which is also why any piece of media depicting any historical time, still carries the values that are contemporary to its making rather than those of the times it represents i.e. Bridgerton, despite sharing historical diegetic time with say, Pride and Prejudice, does not share symbols or values with it because Pride and Prejudice was written in 1813, with the symbolism and meanings associated to various elements that were common understanding to 1813 society, whilst Bridgerton, despite the historical time it places its characters in, was written from 2000 to 2013 carrying the societal values, association and symbolism of the early 21st century.

With that premise in mind, observing the signs used and referenced in both the song and the video “Everybody Scream” we can observe what signs and attached meanings are used in both, and the first blatant observation to me was how, the song and the video, depict two different stories.

1- The Song

The song talks about the Allegory of the Stage as an Altar, where a musician is seen as a God/dess or a higher human channelling divinity the moment they step on stage with a sea of faceless supplicants hailing at them

Get on the stage (Dance)
And I call her (Sing), by her first name (Groove)
Try to stay away (Move)
But I always meet (Shake), her back at this place (Scream)
She gives me everything (Love), I feel no pain
I break down (Jump), get up, and do it all again
Because it's never enough (Live)
And she makes me feel loved (Breathe)
I could come here (Go), and scream as loud as I want (Scream)

The frenzy, screaming, crying of people at a music concert (usually the closer to first row, the more of this behaviour will be observable) is something that defines modern live music experiences. Beatlemania is considered the starting point, specifically the legends started in the 1960s during the first US tour by the Beatles, where allegedly Brian Epstein paid local people during the first tour dates to have hysteric fits and augment the popularity and media coverage of the shows. The same legend has it that, by the third date, no one needed to be paid and girls were fainting and screaming of their own volition. If we go along with this myth, what seems to be the natural and energetic way, easily described as “magic”, that conveys this exchange between Divinity (in the form of a musician) and Adoring Congregation (in the form of the audience), didn’t start naturally at all. It was even in and of itself, a capitalist tool.

Beatles fans screaming with joy during the band's US tour, August 1964. (Photo by William Lovelace/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Because the frenzy, the magic, the inexplicable crackling of energy between the first row barriers and the stage is quite literally the reason why I had been wanting to work in the music industry since I went to my first gig at 12 years old, I have spent a lot of time studying the phenomenon, rationalising it, and trying to understand its value for the audience. It didn’t escape me how the record industry also weaponises something as ineffable as that gut feeling and connection that music (as an extension of poetry, arguably) creates with people, the parasociality, the connection that makes people feel like a Person speaks to them or with words they wish they had -so the artist speaks for them- when in practical terms, the moment music becomes a product, the Person becomes a Brand, that music industry executives’ job is to literally exploit (that is the exact wording of copyright law by the way, to exploit). Music creates a level of brand loyalty that consumer product marketing can only dream to inspire, because of how it taps into emotions and feelings (cue Bernays, the father of Advertisement and Propaganda and nephew of Freud)

2- Witchcore Aesthetic and the Florence Brand

If that sparkling energy was the reason why I had been dreaming of working in the music industry since I was 12 years old, imagine my shock when I finally managed to get there and found out that NO ONE CARED about that connection, but EVERYONE KNEW HOW TO EXPLOIT IT for sales.

And that’s the first point I tried to make: the aethereal art and aesthetic of Florence targets an audience with a certain kind of sensitivity, individuals who likely feel lonely and misunderstood by the rest of the world, and find in Florence the words to describe their inner world. You can see how this perceived connection fosters a tendency to acquire the other signifiers from Florence’s brand image in the belief the connection can grow on multiple other levels, which makes it the wet dream of marketing executives: you feel the connection to the music? I can sell you an entire world of related merchandise and experiences that will give you the feeling of closeness and recognition to what you think is a person but really, is the brand dozens of Universal Music executives have built and curated in the last seventeen years.

Back to the object of analysis: if the lyrics of Everybody Scream are about the allegory of the stage and the codependence/interdependence (chose the term more apt depending on the level of “healthiness” that best describes the parasociality of different fans) of the Supplicants/Audience addicted to the Artist’s work, note how the Divinity/Artist is also addicted to the veneration and attention:

But look at me run myself ragged
Blood on the stage
But how can I leave you when you're screaming my name?

what the heck does witchcraft have to do with it? Because the music video directed by Autumn de Wilde, does not show the allegory of the stage, at all. (PS: fucking brilliant that it addressed the double role of the Artist as Divine Embodiment and Offering on the Altar at the same time though)

The Music video of Everybody Scream uses the signifiers of the witch, the scarlet woman, the troubled, strong, independent woman (yet in heels walking the countryside? way to make life harder for yourself sister). Unsurprisingly this signifier in contemporary culture carries meanings of rebellion. Watching the video repeatedly, in an extreme stretch of imagination, I concede to the vague but possible option that the rebellion depicted can be signified by the softcore fight against the figure of the “backwards cowboy” which could be a signifier of (toxic) masculinity and, as the only one seemingly non-susceptible to the frenzy Florence and the Witches bring to the country house they all find themselves in. So assuming a lot of heavy lifting from the awed audience, there could be a vague message of “scream at the patriarchy”. I want to see that, the signifiers are there.

However… The issue with the witchcraft iconography is in the visual signifiers chosen to characterise the representation of supernatural witchcraft in the form of the Frenzy and fits people in the video are subject to. The hysteric, syncopated movements depicted in the characters listed as Witches in the end credits, and the frenzy that seems to contaminate bystanders in the country house, are supposed to deliver Magic. What some of my most astute commenters highlighted is that at best, what these visuals deliver is the idea of Witchcraft from the lens of Christianity. The frenzy depicted is something you find references mostly in Christian evangelists, healers and people speaking in tongues, it’s the idea of “possession” that Christians have.

The immediate issue with representing witchcraft through the lens of Christianity is that this is a depiction from the point of view of the abuser in power: modern witchcraft revival, as a form of rebellion in the visual of the “feral woman” against the system, comes from the reclamation movement of the 1970s closely connected to second wave feminism and headed by the likes of feminist witch activists such as Starhawk. The modern use of the word Witch, in and of itself, is a reclamation of the term that, during the Witch Trials between the 15th and 17th century, was used as a behavioural threat, mainly against marginalised women who did not abide by the rules of the patriarchal system that was endorsing the movement from feudalism to modern capitalism (Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici will explain it all, I highly recommend it, and it’s free on the Internet Archive).

In short, the visuals used in the Everybody Scream music video to depict witchcraft are through a very white, colonial lens of what Magic is and why it’s “dangerous”. It’s the visual of the demonic possession that requires priests to be exorcised.

The Exorcist (1973) original spider walk scene

Florence and the Machine - Everybody Scream (2025) - The Witches

The point is the emotion you’re trying to elicit, and you can elicit very strong emotions with essentially offensive imagery

Raven - Witchcore: Florence and the Machine Aesthetic VS Meaning

And this is the first conclusion on this music video: Everybody Screams uses signifiers connected to Witchcraft, emptying them completely of their cultural signified, to sell a vague idea of “rebellion”, an aesthetic of Witchcore empty enough that anyone can project whatever they want about their own rebellion, and will therefore happily buy the products connected to this piece of media because it will make them feel that their rebellion is seen, validated, recognised. It exists. Like another very astute commenter on the original video said:

"You're equal, you're out there. now buy these products."

This is the most stark reminder of the fact that, before being an artist and well before being a human whom her audience feel a personal connection (sometimes a soul-connection based on music) to, Florence and The Machine and Florence Welch themselves, are a Brand owned and sold by Universal Music Group, the biggest multinational music corporation in the world of the last two decades, operating within capitalism with the aim to sell products at a profit. This is the fundamental cornerstone of the actual Machine around Florence.

3- Visibility Vs Representation

The second issue is Visibility Vs Representation and how visibility is a pacifier provided to appease people from marginalised cultures and identities, but also to make sure that, without representation, none of these cultures and identities will be elevated “above their station” on the spectrum they occupy that, in the case of Witchcraft, goes from Quirky to Crazy under the Capitalist, Patriarchal, White Supremacists, Ableist system we are all under.

Visibility is the pride flag on the Twitter profile. Representation is in the people who actually work there and the policies that actually support them.

At the core of it, visibility is some form of currency, that occasionally exchanges for some goodwill, but rarely anything more. Representation is a form of recognition

Cate Huston - From Visibility to Representation – Rethinking DEI

Contrary to popular belief and despite the way Capitalism needs Fascism to survive (see: primitive accumulation phases needed to turn a profit out of stolen goods i.e. slavery and colonialism), the capitalist system is not skittish about showing to as many people as possible what they want to see to feel validated enough to buy whatever merchandise Capitalism will connect to that validation, and it will convince us we need in order to sustain that validation. Offering visibility to marginalised cultures and identities is one of the crumbs that the capitalist system offers, even to the people at the margins, to quite simply pacify them: “see? people like you are shown in media, therefore normalised, so really? You don’t need to fight the system, not at all. What you need to do is buy those products that will reinforce your identity and make you recognisable at a glance to people who share your traits so that you’ll find community (for a price). So that energy you spend in fighting for representation? Spend it working, to make money, to buy what will make you feel validated.”

Representation, on the other hand, keeps the meaning and values connected to the signifiers and attempts to contextualise identities and cultures in ways that are authentic, albeit less gut-reaction inducing than, say, in the case of Witches representation, the Hag from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) or indeed, witches arching their backs Exorcist-style in Florence and the Machine’s music video.

Representation is not shocking and doesn’t need to shock. Representation is what furthers the acceptance of marginalised cultures and identities because it shows the humanity in it and the commonality in the experience of existence that all human beings share.

It’s completely understandable in this day and age, where we’ve been trained since the introduction of social media notifications to the quick dopamine release, why negative, even offensive imagery used for visibility, is preferable to representation: because in social media culture, where attention and engagement are arguably goods more precious than individual purchasing power (because it turns individuals into the product that social media platforms from Facebook to TikTok sell to their advertisers and investors), the shocking gut reaction elicited by grotesque caricatures will catch more attention and start more discussions (very meta of me to say, in an essay that literally exists because of how controversial this video is, if you have the ability to understand why) therefore will keep more people engaged and present, with a gut feeling that churns and makes them see red enough to leave a comment on Instagram, Youtube, Substack. And this indeed is my reluctant compliance to this discourse: I used a pastiche of Rene Magritte’s “The Treachery of Images” exactly because I know how controversial that looks, but what seems to feed in this self-phagocytising culture of rage that the Attention Market lives off of, I have done in the hope to reach those few who, after finding this information, will be empowered to make more educated choices, because they might get a speck more of understanding about how the system they find themselves in, works.

Which accidentally helps introduce the next part, inspired by a certain kind of comment that just dismissed the knowledge I shared as “why do you bother? don't yall have real problems to deal with?” (genuine comment I received on the analysis of this video). Before going into why that mindset is exactly how entertainment media primes you to acquire uncritically the set of values it portrays, embedding it in your mind in what becomes “unconscious bias”, here’s a more personal reasoning of mine.

I could argue that, by this point, I’ve accumulated an accidental wealth of knowledge that lets me understand relatively clearly the systems of oppression we are part of, and I can prove the factuality of the things I discuss and analyse, with receipts, rather than what most people without this foundation think: that this is my opinion and therefore it matters as much as their uneducated one. With pettiness we could say I can prove why I’m right. And that’s what most people with a parasocial relationship to Florence (or anything/anyone I critiqued so far) has felt the need to show their defensiveness for what they feel is an intrinsic part of their identity (Florence’s Brand), as a personal attack to myself.

But there’s another crucial thing and it is that one of my core values is to share my understanding of the systems, from products to media, to superficially progressive ideas (like “love and light”) and how they play into the pacification of the masses: it kept me quiet for too long a time, so I simplify and share my understanding of the world in the hope that the person who feels like Ysha when she was 12, but had no understanding of what the issues where, let alone how to fight them, can get there easier and quicker than I did, hopefully helping to change the world faster than I can.

4- Entertainment as the most effective Propaganda

One of the most interesting rebuttals to my analysis was the request to demand (depending on different people expressing the same need), for me to STOP analysing things. Those who took the time to provide a reason as to why understanding the motived behind a piece of media through media analysis was “bad” came up with the belief that:

Some things are just meant to be felt and enjoyed, not picked apart under a microscope

Entertainment specifically is seen as one such thing. This is not the first time I received this “criticism of my critique” of a piece of media. My analysis of Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe as reactionary Propaganda received the same annoyed feedback: “why do you have to take away my entertainment? can’t I even relax mindlessly now? you have to judge that as well? no wonder you lefties are no fun at parties”

In “Propaganda All Along” I go as far as to using quotes from the Cuban Government as to why they look with rightful scepticism at the free offers from the US to “bring internet and with it their entertainment” indeed such as Marvel, to the socialist country.

“We are not against new technologies. We simply have to understand them and use them in our interest, but we also need to know how the enemy will use them”

Which is the simple understanding of how Entertainment media has the ability to affect people’s internal values and biases, especially about things they don’t know first hand in their lives, and the consciousness that, without media literacy and critical thinking, if “entertainment” keeps showing you for decades that terrorist are Arabs and wear Keffiyehs, News Media will need to do very little on top of that belief, cemented by Entertainment Media, to make you believe, for over 75 years, that Israel has a right to exist and defend itself from the “animalistic terrorists that are Arabs, therefore, Palestinians”

Iron Man (2008) - Tony Stark surrounded by his terrorist captives, most of them wearing a Keffiyeh, a traditional headdress from the middle east.

Entertainment media is arguably the most effective kind of propaganda because through narrative and stories (which is the easiest way to deliver information to human beings) it can portray opinions and values masquerading them as mere entertainment that’s not worth our critical thinking. And when we consume entertainment without our critical mind inquiring why we are shown the things we are shown, it’s very easy to internalise the values that are presented as reasonable in stories we are consuming, especially when we are paying a ticket for it: “I am paying my Disney+ subscription, surely I am not paying to be brainwashed!”

Without critical thinking, you don’t ask yourself “why are the bad terrorists wearing Keffiyehs?” you just start associating keffiyehs with terrorists, even if nothing but entertainment media has shown you that signifier (keffiyeh) associated with that signified (terrorist).

And that’s how your racist unconscious bias against Arab people being terrorists is born. Now multiply it for every spoke of the Wheel of Privilege (which we’re going to look at closely in the next section), and look at the margins of it: notice how the further away from the centre of the wheel, the more those identities and roles make you uncomfortable, you know why? Because media has shown you homeless people as disgusting, visibly disabled people as just worth your pity, poor people as lazy, fat people as wilful weights on society and so on. Do you know where that belief comes from, despite the fact you most likely don’t know people in those categories directly? Media visibility of those categories in a negative connotation, because the entertainment within a capitalist system has to demonise anyone who doesn’t accept and execute their function as a cog in the system that reinforces the white cis het ableist supremacy of patriarchy.

5- Are Witches even Marginalised?

Another criticism to try and invalidate my entire analysis was: “witches are not a marginalised identity, so criticising Florence for not providing representation is a moot point.”

To understand the meaning and context of marginalisation, the Wheel of Privilege might be the first useful tool to consider here

Intersectionality: Wheel of Privilege (as observed in the USA). Adapted from Sylvia Duckworth, Canadian Council for Refugees, and Olena Hankivsky, PhD.

I find this to be the best cornerstone to explain intersectionality. This is a graphic representation of what is considered “normal” at the centre of the wheel, while every spoke represents a sliver of identity or social role. Whilst identity, by nature, cannot change (which is why Fascists ultimately aim to the erasure of people they do not accept the identity of i.e. non-white people, trans people, lgbtq+ people and basically anyone with immutable characteristic in the margin categories of the wheel) sociocultural roles can vary throughout someone’s life (i.e. education, marriage status, etc…)

While the identity of Witch can be covert, so different from say, race, it can be hidden and undisclosed if the witch so decides, its marginalisation is represented in the spoke of the wheel of privilege that describes Religion (and arguably mental health, but more on that later), and in the current sociocultural context we are all in, the centre of the wheel, therefore the power of credibility and authority, is held by Christians, followed by anyone who is at least following the Christian holidays (think how codified in everyone’s calendar is, regardless of religious belief, that we have Christmas Holydays), with anyone else looked down upon or ridiculed (see the outrage of the right at saying “happy holidays” to try and be respectful to any non-Christian, instead of “merry Christmas”)

But if that doesn’t seem like it should be considered a marginalisation for the aforementioned disclosure, the following might give you an idea why witchcraft and anyone practicing it, is still legally discriminated against.

Whilst the Witchcraft Act of 1753 was repealed in the UK in 1951, it was repealed in order to make room for the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951, which after 2008 was replaced itself by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and then in 2024 by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. Without going in the details of all these laws, suffice to say they give room to credit card payments processing providers to provide their services to “witches” at their discretion. Much like major credit card companies such as VISA have taken it upon themselves to choose for you whether you can or cannot buy adult content with a VISA credit card that you own and links to your band account, so effectively VISA gets to decide what you can spend your money on, the same way providers of financial technology services such as SumUp, the most popular card reader provider in the UK, has decided that if you take payments for a tarot reading and openly declare so in the receipt you provide your customer, SumUp will not allow you to take payment for it, despite your customer making an educated decision to buy one from you, whether for fortune telling or entertainment purposes. SumUp categorises any business under the vague label “occult” in the same restricted category as bestiality pornographic content amongst others, then lists Fortune Telling as part of their restricted businesses according to the License they have been given by Financial regulators (which can include the discretionary choices made indeed by credit card providers such as VISA, Mastercard and American Express). This is the email I received the morning after reading tarot at a local market and taking payments with the SumUp card reader. The Transactions were listed as “Card Reading”.

As a regulated financial entity, we have to follow rules and regulations set by the financial regulator, the card schemes and our acquiring banks.

Due to our licensing restrictions, we cannot support certain businesses or payments.

After a review of your profile, we regret to inform you that your business model falls within the restricted business category that we are unable to support. As we can’t support your business model, we have closed your profile.

Please note, since your SumUp Card is blocked, you'll no longer be able to use it.

This is just one example and describes only one of the effects of the marginalisation of being an overt Witch, but it describes the institutionally codified way in which the legal and economic systems reject our existence and forbids us to make a living out of it within the current legal framework. Simply put, it makes it impossible for us to make an honest living according to its own definition of “honest”, regardless of our clients or our own informed decisions to practice and pay for our services. (we should talk about how these laws are also specifically targeting Travellers communities and are a racists extension of anti-romani sentiments, for more on that I will invite you to check out Romani Scientist. Suffice to say that the Vagrancy Act 1824 under which fortune-telling, astrology and spiritualism became punishable offences has not been repealed yet, and to this day, in England and Wales, under this law, the simple act of begging or sleeping rough are criminal offences.)

But a more insidious issue comes from the misunderstanding of Intersectionality and the use of the spokes of the wheel of privilege as simple categories to compare and put in competition with each other. “Being of a marginalised race is worse than being homeless!”, or “being uneducated is better than being poor”. This still applies the competitive lens that’s intrinsic to Capitalism to marginalised people, trying to divide and conquer them. It’s what the right thinks the “oppression Olympics” are, which reveals their skewed optics that serve hierarchy as long as they are on top, while breaking the wheel of privilege is the aim for anyone interested in community and equity.

Using as an example another comment I received that claimed witches are not a marginalised identity, this was the argument presented:

so to be clear, as a white woman and practicing witch, and a lesbian living in a comfy blue state, I’m a marginalized person? That’s what it boils down to?

And no, it’s not what it boils down to. What it boils down to is that applying an intersectional lens to marginalisation is not a simple tally of the ways we are marginalised, but the way marginalisations compound.

To give you an example: when I started to speak in favour of Palestine as an Arab, Queer, Femme presenting Non-Binary disabled person, whose English sounds foreign and who lives on benefits due to their disabilities and autism, my main concern was for the charities I aimed to help and support, because I immediately knew that, every step that separated me from the centre of the wheel, removed legitimacy and authority to anything I said and did, and I was afraid that my support for Palestine as a witch and the creation of “Witches for Palestine” would have taken credibility away from the Palestinian cause.

Take a lesbian white woman as the person who left that comment: why is it relevant to begin with to say that she lives in a Blue state? Might it be because, if she didn’t, she would have been marginalised? More importantly, how does the marginalisation of Witch compounds on her being queer and a woman? Yes, both those categories aren’t the centre of the wheel (they’d have to be straight and a man to be the established authority and power) but she is still White, and that is a category that belongs to the centre of the Wheel of Privilege in a white supremacists racist system as we currently are in.

The point I am trying to make here is: how many marginalisations you need compounded for the identity and label of “witch” to move your position in the spectrum that goes from “quirky” to “crazy person”? Arguably, the more visible our belonging to a marginalised category is, the more risk in admitting overtly to yet another marginalisation.

A white, cis, queer woman who declares herself a witch, is on the Quirky side of the spectrum. She might be considered as to having an “original spirituality” but her authority, derived by the other privileges granted to her, first and foremost her whiteness, isn’t questioned, or isn’t question *as much* on her.

A brown, trans-nonbinary, femme presenting, fat, autistic, disabled person whose spoken English carries an unchangeable accent that reveals they weren’t born in the UK? My credibility and authority were never there to begin with, which is why, to every dismissive ad hominem comment, my reply always has to come with receipts, bibliography, links, books, and even then, most people will not bother checking those sources, not because they aren’t valid, but because the simple fact they come from someone where all those marginalisations compound, takes authority away from the sources themselves: they cannot be valid if someone who deserves no respect has chosen them. The scrutiny that someone with multiple marginalisations is subject to gets harsher the further away from the centre of power their position is on multiple spokes of the wheel of privilege. Have you ever thought how, given any marginalisation you might embody, you have to work twice as hard as a cis white het able rich man? Compound that the more intersections your marginalisation lives at and imagine how, no matter the proof you can bring, any subject you discuss about, can become tainted just by mere association with you. That is how intersectionality compounds.

Here is part of the reply I gave the aforementioned white cis lesbian in a blue state, to which they never replied back.

The fact I cannot use my full name on the work I do as a witch for the prejudice that would put on me if I ever were to need to do "public facing" stuff is the marginalisation You might not think about it because it doesn't impact your credibility or life, but to claim being an openly practicing witch is not a marginalisation it's lacking comprehension of what a marginalisation and a dominant power are. And again, marginalisations compound, so I'm sure that if you are white and straight passing, you declaring yourself a witch sounds quirky. If I say it as a fat visibly queer autistic immigrant of colour, I'm crazy. I literally had to make a video to explain why, the quirky manic pixie dream girlish feeling, does not apply to someone like me. when I say I'm a witch, on me, the word compounds

Conclusions: We are not ready for class consciousness

I use class consciousness liberally here as an awareness of people about their position in terms of power, subjugations and marginalisations, according to the intersectional fundamentals described in the Wheel of Privilege, which is a broad extension of Marx’s concept. Marx believed that, once the working class would gain class consciousness as a result of its experience of exploitation, they would then be able to recognise the ruling class as the enemy that forces their lives to be subjugated to labour to attain the simple means of survival, selling their labour in order to have shelter and food, basic dignities that the rise of Capitalism made into commodities to be earned. The oxymoronic idea that Living itself has a Cost that needs to be paid in order to earn our survival as human beings.

In making media critiques with language and concepts easily accessible to the masses, my ambition was to provide, to the people caught in the marketing machine that sells Florence The Brand under the carefully constructed delusion that the audience really knows and accesses Florence the Person, the means to understand a sliver of the systems of power they are unconsciously exploited by. My questionable belief rises from my personal experience and the hope that, had I been provided with analytical tools to understand the systems of power that oppressed me, I would have been able to take action towards their dismantling sooner rather than later in life. My naïve belief, if you will, is that whoever you are, you might be in a similar position of confusion and ignorance as I have been for most of my life, and so here I am, simplifying and rendering concepts that explain why Capitalism is the opposite of community, why trans rights are part of the inviolable rights of bodily autonomy that Patriarchy has tried to take from women ever since the witch trials, what system of oppressions are we embedded in and we have been made to belief are “normality”, but an unjust, unfair normality, that can and should be changed, and the first step to take action, is awareness: name the systems of power, show how they affect the smallest of things in our lives, and empower people to make their own educated choices.

What I did not realise is that a lot of people will resent being given the tools to understand the system, because along with awareness comes the responsibility: now that you know the world is wrong, unequal, and exploitative, not by chance but by design, what kind of person are you if you stand complacently still?

Following the publication of Florence’s video analysis the main criticism (far from critique) I received was surprisingly from the very same people I sought to help and hoped that, rendering the analysis through accessible language, would have given them the means to understand how, capitalism cares for them only as consumers of the Florence product, and how it only seeks to extract money and attention (that becomes still money to them) from the audience. But the average Florence fan was not distraught and seeking to push back with their own critique or analysis of her value, no. The main reaction was the villainization of myself, the disregard of the theory I applied to reveal to them that the Florence they adore is a consumer product. That is the nature of Florence the Brand rather than Florence the Person, despite the fact that the Brand has been presented to them as if the Person would be their best friend, if only they could get close enough, legitimately enough, and the marketing machine is there to tell us “Hey, I can sell you something to get closer to her!”. Cue the ad hominem attacks to me rather than the inwards reflection:

Florence is a better witch representation than you. It’s quite obvious.

And while she might very well be (because the marketing image of the witch has moved from the Hag to the beautiful, lithe temptress because it sells better, which I don’t even remotely fit) the mix between Florence Welch private personal life, and the aesthetic used by UMG to represent the Brand under that name, has clearly achieved success when consumers have been convinced there is a person (they don’t know) that they need to defend, spending this way extra energy, on top of the attention and money they already directly pour on Florence the Brand. Florence the Brand, whom they perceive as a Person that they are close to and therefore *need* to defend, like they would a friend.

A friend they will fight for, against any person who tries to show and explain to them the web of marketing that has weaponised their loneliness and need for community, which is exactly what I meant when I talked about Capitalism selling us criticism of itself, since it thrives on isolation and individuality to spur the need to buy products in the delusion that the alienation will subside with enough signifiers plucked from a culture into an aesthetic.

A friend that has studied their purchase behaviours to serve them just enough echoes of rebellion, packaged in the emptied symbolism the last 60 years the feminist culture has worked to build, hoping the signifiers can still entice enough to sell Florence the Brand’s next album, “Everybody Scream”. And the last ironic jab at the carved carcass of the witchcraft that they use to sell their product, is the release date: 31st October 2025.

“Here’s something you NEED to buy to be part of this coven of witches under Florence: Buy the New Album Now!”

Happy Halloween.

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