00:03:30.160Almost 14 years ago, a court deemed pop icon Britney Spears, unable to take care of herself,
00:03:36.180placing her in a conservatorship that stripped her of control of nearly every aspect of her life,
00:03:41.300including her finances, her ability to drive a car or use an ATM, or make decisions about her own body.
00:03:48.080Last month, a judge ruled to end that conservatorship that Britney and her fans have long maintained was abusive and traumatic.
00:03:54.800Britney spoke up against the conservatorship to a judge. Here's what she had to say.
00:03:58.500I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive, and that we can sit here all day and say, oh, conservatorships are here to help people.
00:04:04.780Britney's release from the conservatorship was sparked in part by the Free Britney movement.
00:04:09.240Spearheaded by Britney superfan Megan Radford, the movement began in 2009 and aimed to draw
00:04:14.480attention to the singer's conservatorship. Largely organized online, the movement was made
00:04:19.120up of fans and advocates from all over the world pushing to end what they said was a predatory
00:04:23.500conservatorship, including a Change.org petition for Britney's right to hire her own lawyer
00:04:27.760that got over 250,000 signatures. In Britney's first Instagram post after her conservatorship0.98
00:04:33.820was voided. She wrote, the Free Britney movement, you guys rock. Honestly, my voice was muted and
00:04:39.800threatened for so long, and I wasn't able to speak up or say anything. I honestly think you guys
00:04:44.400saved my life in a way, 100%. But even though Free Britney was a pretty successful movement,
00:04:50.340largely organized online, it hasn't really gotten the same kind of attention as other online
00:04:55.140movements. I sat down with Melissa Ryan, friend of the show, online organizing expert, and CEO
00:05:01.080an editor of Control-Alt-Right-Delete, a popular newsletter dissecting culture, extremism,
00:05:05.860technology, and the internet. So, Melissa, you have been covering and following the Free
00:05:10.500Britney movement for a while, and I think that you have been covering it with a seriousness
00:05:14.480that I think it took a while for other folks to get to. What initially attracted you to this
00:05:19.460movement? Like, why were you following it so seriously? Well, I mean, I think I was aware
00:05:24.180of it for a while, and I thought of it just sort of like, oh, a thing that music fans are doing
00:05:29.560and is is somewhat interesting uh but the new york times documentary was really it was staggering
00:05:35.800to me both that this had been going on so long that they were able to get folks on so many folks
00:05:40.140on the record but also that this online movement had been growing and building for some time
00:05:45.480and wasn't necessarily being taken seriously um and there was you know they were clearly able to
00:05:52.040generate a lot of press stories they were getting attention from other celebrities but there just
00:05:57.200wasn't much sort of conversation among the serious people who love to talk about digital and tech
00:06:02.080things. And then when Spears did her first testimony in court, a couple of things became
00:06:08.980obvious. One was her fans had clear, you know, this movement and her fans had clearly been part
00:06:14.520of what gave her the courage to speak up and to demand to be heard in a public forum. But two,
00:06:21.100that the organizing had worked, that these folks, whatever they were trying to get, they had scored
00:06:28.320just a huge win because none of this, I think, would have happened without their years and years
00:06:34.100of rallying online. And still, they were sort of treated in the press like, oh, these conspiracy
00:06:39.820theorist fans or these folks that have no life. And it was very disconcerting because this was
00:06:47.840a huge win I mean you and I both work in politics you don't get wins like this like they they got
00:06:53.600absolutely I mean I really kind of see it as one of those classic stories that we cover a lot on
00:06:59.720this show where at first people are dismissed as you know oh they're crazy they don't know what
00:07:04.940they're talking about all of that and then they're kind of proven right and I feel like the free
00:07:10.080Britney movement is one of those stories where the most vocal folks were dismissed why do you
00:07:15.760think that is like why was it so easy to discount these people i think because a lot of her fans
00:07:20.060were women and i think because a lot of her fans were lgbtq um and i think there was the perception
00:07:25.660that a lot of them were very young because we think of music fans being young although you
00:07:30.120know britney uh britney is 40 now where i think she turned 40 last week so it stands to reason
00:07:36.300that her fans are probably not as young i doubt there are many teenagers that are listening to
00:07:41.120Britney Spears except in the context of like their parents 90s station maybe I could be wrong
00:07:46.480I do think there's a perception that the people who are rallying around her and who are really
00:07:52.040intensely interested in her are just teeny boppers online and I think that speaks to
00:07:57.320how we belittle and cast aside people who are marginalized as you know just teenagers online or
00:08:06.300Just a bunch of women collecting online, as opposed to this movement that really was lifting up questions about, you know, disability justice, reproductive justice.
00:08:15.740I see this story as hitting so many intersections of the work that you and I do as progressive organizers, you know, lifting up, you know, if somebody like Britney Spears can be mistreated in this way, what does that say for other people who might have disabilities?
00:08:29.620What does it say for other folks who want body autonomy and control over the reproductive choices?
00:08:35.040You know, that the second New York Times documentary that came out about Britney Spears, for me, was a real tech story about the surveillance apparatus that controlled her in her home.
00:08:46.440You know, I think it's really fascinating how it took kind of a while for folks to get on board with talking about this story in a way that really highlighted those important issues.
00:08:57.760Yeah, I think it would be interesting to dig into how folks who participated in this at various levels, how her story resonated with them, whether it was the conservatorship angle, whether it was the reproductive freedom angle, whether it was the way that women so often get dismissed or there's when women get so much access to capital and power, there are almost always efforts to try to take it away from them.
00:09:20.800Because I am guessing for a lot of folks, it's not just that they like Britney Spears' music, but they saw something or they related to something that was happening.
00:09:30.340In 2019, Britney's Graham, a podcast dedicated to deep dives and close readings into Britney Spears' Instagram posts, received a voicemail from a paralegal who said he was connected to Britney's conservatorship.
00:09:42.620According to him, Britney was forced into a mental health facility against her will.
00:09:46.660This created a firestorm of new support for ending the conservatorship.
00:09:50.040these you know women who had started this podcast devoted to to britney's instagram which i totally0.99
00:09:56.500get i now follow britney's instagram and i love that it's like a combination of her dancing and
00:10:01.620middle-aged mom memes i don't know i just i spend so much time on britney's instagram now it's
00:10:06.860amazing just if we're gonna have that little tangent like i wish i had known about it years
00:10:11.260ago um but you know and that they were you know because they had this podcast you know someone
00:10:16.760trusted them enough to leave them this voicemail saying, you know, I used to work for this law
00:10:21.440firm and something that's happening to her isn't right. And just that they were able to build that
00:10:26.480much trust with people who were in her orbit just by, you know, being fans and the content they were
00:10:31.540creating. It's fascinating to me. It really is. And I've been following her on Instagram for a
00:10:36.640while and I love it. I love her spinning dance moves. Love it. And even after the conservatorship
00:10:43.020has been lifted just she's using her instagram to document these little things that i take for
00:10:49.260granted like she made a post about getting to have an ipad and and how that how free that made
00:10:54.480her feel and i think i think it does an interesting job of illustrating what you know what the abuse
00:11:03.700of people who have disabilities can look like where it's like the little things that she didn't
00:11:08.420get to have access to didn't get to just like be able to be on her ipad i think it can really put
00:14:48.480Matt Goetz, while in the middle of an ongoing sex trafficking investigation,
00:14:52.860spoke at an in-person Free Britney rally.
00:14:55.680I really didn't understand what was happening.
00:14:57.820But Melissa says extremists co-opting cultural moments for their own agendas is nothing new.
00:15:02.900One of the things that you really did a nice job of pointing out is this weird thing that happened where at the height of the Free Britney movement, when there was all this momentum, we saw all of these right-wing, far-right extremists and trolls, I guess I would say co-opting it.
00:15:18.400there was this time where matt gets was speaking at a free britney rally and i showed up at a rally
00:15:24.360what do you like what do you think was going on with that like what was happening that was
00:15:29.100something i ever seeing that in my newsfeed and being like my brain can't even comprehend what
00:15:33.720this is i need to just move on like what what was that i mean i think i tend to think of matt
00:15:38.520gates as a professional troll and sometimes congressman like once in a while he shows up
00:15:42.720to work at congress but most of the time he seems to be like where can i get the most attention
00:15:47.600for myself, which is why he like goes to Wyoming to campaign against Wiz Cheney and, you know,
00:15:53.780the Free Britney rally. And so I think he just saw a moment and was like, how can I exploit it to get
00:15:59.260attention for myself? And I think more broadly, that's sort of what the far right does. They don't
00:16:03.820really build culture. They steal culture. You know, it's like you see, they try to appropriate
00:16:08.820everything from Pepe the Frog, from you see them with Karen and with Free Britney, they saw an
00:16:14.120opportunity. And one of the most amusing things to me was when her lawyer, we should definitely
00:16:21.240talk about the lawyer too, because that guy just looks like Atticus Finch. They just pulled him
00:16:25.480out of central casting. But when her lawyer was talking after the conservatorship ended,
00:16:29.640and he very specifically said, everyone from the far right to the left is supporting Britney now.
00:16:36.320And I do appreciate how her lawyer took advantage of the fact that everybody and their mother was
00:16:41.060sort of glomming onto his client yeah do you do you think that we're gonna see more of that kind
00:16:47.520of thing like is that is that a common tactic of extremists to just whatever conversation is
00:16:53.800happening how can i jump into that conversation and co-opt it for my own you know my own
00:16:59.900fucked up agenda yeah i mean you see it a lot and again like they're these folks especially0.96
00:17:06.460ones who are elected to i think you know i'm especially obsessed with like these extremists0.93
00:17:10.540who've managed to get themselves elected to office, they don't really have any interest
00:17:14.220in serving their constituencies. They really are like constantly auditioning for Fox News,
00:17:19.700for Trump to try to create viral moments for themselves. So, you know, I think Marjorie
00:17:24.140Taylor Greene was another one who all of a sudden cared about free Britney. There was a congressman
00:17:28.720in South Carolina who did a free Britney bill about reproductive, about not being able to0.99
00:17:34.140force someone to have birth control. Probably not realizing that. I know, I know. I was like,
00:17:38.980oh dude you're so close so close you have no idea um but yeah I mean you're gonna see a lot
00:17:45.500of that with pop culture moments and we've been seeing it I mean how many movies uh that star0.90
00:17:50.200women and people of color have the right freaked out about um you know you see that with with so1.00
00:17:55.440much culture and again like they're they're too lazy and too not creative to create their own1.00
00:18:00.020culture so when it comes to culture like they're always going to try to steal it yeah that's
00:18:05.180something i i've really been stuck on is the way that pop culture and things that we used to think
00:18:12.520of as like you know diversions how that has kind of become a new battle i guess i won't say new
00:18:18.560battlefield but just another battlefield to have these wars play out on and to have people try to
00:18:24.140make a name for themselves like i think about the whole controversy around the movie cuties things
00:18:28.200like that where we're no longer having conversations about the film the art whatever it's just a proxy
00:18:34.400for people to co-opt this conversation
00:18:37.440and to make sure that the only chatter around it
00:19:28.040And corporate America has figured out for better or worse, there's good and bad to this,
00:19:31.820But they have figured out that more diversity and more inclusion makes them more money because they're reaching more audiences. So the right is just not going to have that mass media power that they have been used to having, and they don't have the ability to influence conversation through mass media the way they have in the past.
00:19:47.160That's such an interesting point. I could see a lot of folks on the right. Yeah, the understandable reaction to that is rage. Like, I don't have the influence in this space I used to, so I'm going to rail against it or co-opt it if I can. It's all so disingenuous.
00:20:05.040And it's like, as you said, it's not it's not creating culture. It's not it's not creating culture to co-opt another movement. It's not creating culture to, you know, turn a piece of film or a piece of art or a television show into a proxy war for your, you know, rage to play out in. It's it's in the absence of creating culture. I feel this is all they have.
00:20:28.660kind of sad when you put it that way it is sad and i actually don't think we recognize enough
00:20:34.680just how badly the right is losing the culture war and again that's because they have so much
00:20:38.700power politically but it's an interesting disconnect and it'll be interesting to see
00:20:42.480how it plays out yeah so i guess one of my last questions for you is as an online organizer and
00:20:48.440somebody who cares about the internet are there takeaways that you see that we can glean from this
00:20:53.580you know pretty i would say successful free britney online organizing moment yeah i mean i
00:20:59.740think you can't underestimate the power of internet movements to create not just political
00:21:04.720but cultural change um i think yeah well we've we talked about how we're going to continue to see
00:21:10.860the right like try and fail to co-opt things like this um but mostly i just hope that uh i want to
00:21:18.140see what these folks who are involved in free britney do next there was a lot of talk uh when
00:21:22.860I've seen quotes in the press of we're going to get more involved in getting the conservatorship
00:21:27.000law changed and reproductive rights. So it'll it'll be interesting to see what the hardcore0.74
00:21:32.160folks do around it. And then I'm also I'm kind of interested to, you know, Britney Spears is
00:21:37.300someone who's had a career of not being political. Like I think you, you know, she's from a red0.95
00:21:42.320state. She is very careful, I think, and always and how she talks about politics and issues like
00:21:49.360I think she's been very smart about that in her career. So it'll be interesting to see what she ends up doing if she wants to be an advocate for disability rights or for women's rights.
00:22:00.440She may not want to. And by the way, she has every right to just live her life and not be the leader of a movement.0.98
00:22:05.140But if she wants to do more with it, she clearly has a community that's ready to engage with her. So that'll be interesting as well.
00:22:12.360yeah it's going to be really interesting to see and i'm with you i think i'm one of those people
00:22:17.320that if there's one thing i believe in it is the power of women and lgbtq folks and people of color
00:22:23.180who are fired up and have access to the internet and social media like big things are possible
00:22:28.500things i never there are so many things in a million years i would have never thought i would
00:22:32.780see but because somebody had the internet they were able to make it happen that somebody had
00:22:38.080the internet and a voice. And I think this is a great example of the power of that. And, you
00:22:42.820know, especially now when we're all kind of living our lives online more and more because of COVID,
00:22:47.640I think it's going to be an exciting time to see how that bears out. Yeah. So where can folks keep
00:22:53.720up with all the amazing work that you're doing, Melissa? Sure. Well, I am on Twitter at Melissa
00:22:59.040Ryan. I also have my newsletter, Control Alt Right Delete, which is free and comes out every Sunday.
00:23:05.580You can either find that in my Twitter bio or you can go to controlaltrightdelete.com.
00:23:12.580Controlaltrightdelete is the most, I mean, I get so many newsletters.