The indie rock band Geese, who rocketed to fame with their album 'Getting Killed', have revealed that their rise was engineered by the digital marketing firm Chaotic Good Projects. The band's frontman Cameron Winter has been praised as a saviour of rock, but it turns out his success might be more manufactured than musical.

Chaotic Good, known for their 'digital experiments and musical mayhem', explained that they used social media to drive Geese's music into recommendation algorithms. This involved creating networks of social media pages on TikTok and YouTube to boost the band's visibility. The process, dubbed 'trend simulation', involves fabricating interactions and discourse around an artist.

This revelation has sparked a debate about the ethics of viral marketing in the music industry. While some fans are upset, others point out that it is business as usual, with many artists relying on similar tactics to gain traction online. The use of bots and 'streaming farms' to inflate numbers is now an accepted part of the industry.

For bands who built their credibility through hard work, this revelation could be damaging. As Darren Hemmings puts it in his post: 'Reputational damage is the toughest thing to shake.' The question remains: are we all just digital pawns in a big online game?