The Evolution of the ‘PsyOp’ as a Conspiracist Trope

Day two at the AoIR 2024 conference starts for me with a panel on conspiracy theories, which is opened by Daniël de Zeeuw. His focus is on the growth of the use of the term PsyOp, or psychological operation – these are usually military or government operations to change public opinion through unconventional means. Conspiracy theories about PsyOps have been pushed increasingly especially by far-right actors in the U.S., including Fox News, and often originate from 4chan; there is a substantial increase especially from 2016 onwards.

But through this process the term PsyOp has also lost its core meaning, and has become a meme in its own right; in 4chan-speak, it has also become a verb (‘psyoped’), and has become linked with conspiracy theory influencers. It has even appeared in art, as in Brandon Bandy’s “PSYOP Realism” exhibition. This idea of PsyOp realism builds on the concepts of platform capitalism and capitalist realism, and marks the impossibility of imagining a future beyond the realm of PsyOps, and indeed beyond the Internet as a giant data extraction machine that can be operationalised by influence operations and other relevant actors.

Even the U.S. military’s 4th Psychological Operations division has leant into this rhetoric and realism in one of its recruitment videos on YouTube. This taps into a rich seam of PsyOp memes – ‘friendship is a PsyOp’, ‘we’re all in this PsyOp together’ – which both ironically affirm and critique the PsyOp rhetoric. These memes stage incongruity and reflect on the discontinuities between platforms as mechanisms for socialite and tools for surveillance. The covert sector is no longer an external spectral presence but has been internalised as a constant part of our everyday experience.

This might also mark a transition from mass surveillance to full-blown PsyOp capitalism: a constant process of manipulation and conditioning. This builds on a shift in focus and an acceleration, as the world of online socially mediated psychological warfare inverts the machinations of the twentieth-century war on terror – this new world is porous and hyperconnected, and threats are omnipresent.