episode 9: Britney, Free

Episode Title: Conspiracy, She Wrote - Episode 9: Britney, Free

[00:00:00] FREE BRITNEY PROTEST:
Chanting: Free Britney now! Free Britney now!

[00:00:19] TESS BARKER:
When the judge said, like, the conservatorship... Britney Spears has been terminated. It's one of the few times in my life where I feel like, okay, we were trying to do this really hard thing. We did this really hard thing, and it has definitively been accomplished. It was like, "We did it, Joe."

[00:00:40] CRISTEN:
It was late November 2021, and two really hard things had been accomplished. One was getting Britney Spears out of that torturous 13-year-long conservatorship.

[00:00:56] TESS BARKER:
They walked out to the street, and there was confetti coming down and people celebrating. [DOG BARK]

[00:01:01] CRISTEN:
Pardon my dog for interrupting. He was very excited to hear that too.

[00:01:04] TESS BARKER:
Of course!

[00:01:04] CRISTEN:
The other hard thing was getting people to take Free Britney seriously.

[00:01:14] TESS BARKER:
The mainstream media narrative around a lot of the Free Britney movement was that it was a conspiracy theory and that we were just a bunch of, like, wackos—overzealous fans who were doing more harm than good, who were sort of extrapolating nonsense from her captions, and that we were just wackadoos on the street. 

And so that was a kind of interesting life experience for me too—just knowing I knew enough to know that people could call me a wackadoo, but that it was true. You guys can say whatever you want about me. I know the truth, and I'm not going to shut up.

[00:01:46] CRISTEN:
This is Conspiracy She Wrote. That was my dog Brewster, and I'm Cristen Conger. It's been nearly three years since that surreal day in downtown Los Angeles. 

Ever since, I've wondered: Disproving conspiracy theories doesn't make them go away. We've learned that time and again this season. Instead, they just shapeshift. Less clear is what happens when a fan theory—in this case—is proven true, and the entire world, or at least all of Instagram, is looped in on it. What happens after it's fact? 

Grab your red string and follow along...

[00:02:50] CRISTEN:
Tess Barker is a podcaster, investigative reporter, and comedian.

[00:02:50] TESS BARKER:
And I specialize in doing journalism around pop culture stories, which came to a head sort of when my podcast Britney's Gram kind of helped spearhead or launch the Free Britney movement.

[00:03:00] CRISTEN:
Yeah. And prior to that, did you have any kind of relationship with or engagement with other Free Britney stans?

[00:03:11] TESS BARKER:
Oh gosh, no, not at all. I knew the other Britney Spears fans definitely. That's something that I would say I look for in a friend is that they like Britney Spears. But I was never someone who was very engaged in the online world of fandom. So I was introduced to that world kind of like birth by fire. I really didn't have any understanding of it until we were sort of in the middle of it.

[00:03:33] CRISTEN:
So what was Britney’s Gram?

[00:03:35] TESS BARKER:
Britney's Gram was a show that started out—that I started with Babs Gray, who is my co-host on my comedy podcast Lady to Lady. And it started out as sort of like this very niche kind of side project where the joke was going to be that we were taking Britney Spears’ Instagram and every week, you know, giving it way more attention than we thought would be a normal amount of attention to give someone's Instagram. So, sort of like, you know, a deep investigation into her Instagram, but it was intended to be a comedy podcast.

[00:04:06] CRISTEN:
But that was late 2017. In her tightly controlled conservatorship life, Britney's Instagram was kind of the closest thing she had to freedom. And for fans, it was the closest they had to a wellness check.

[00:04:26] TESS BARKER:
It started out as kind of a slow burn where it was like, okay, I know this person's in this really restrictive legal situation. So week by week, it would be like, wait, why is she always alone? Where are all of her friends? Why is she always doing fashion shows in her hallway alone?

 And what started out as us joking about the kind of, like, soccer mom memes that she would post—week after week of looking at it, it started to be like, wait, she said, "Let me shop, and no one gets hurt." And then she captioned it, "Story of my life, literally." So we would kind of look at the post through that critical lens. 

And then gradually, after seeing those things week after week, it kind of, like, built to a place where I started to believe, like, oh, something might seriously be wrong here.

[00:05:11] CRISTEN:
Let's go back to 2008. Britney Spears was a young mom of two under four and a woman in crisis. That January, she was placed in two emergency psychiatric holds while she was still being hospitalized. Her parents and business manager fast-tracked a temporary conservatorship, and Britney didn't find out until after it was all said and done. 

That October, the temporary conservatorship was made permanent, and a judge appointed her father, Jamie Spears, as co-conservator. The other co-conservator was a lawyer we'll hear about in a minute.

Fast forward to late 2018—we are 10 years into this conservatorship. Tess had started combing through all the court records and legal documents. Riffing about Britney's Instagram was not enough. Tess and Babs needed answers. And one came in the form of a court docket. 

Tess spotted an upcoming hearing involving that lawyer slash co-conservator. He'd be petitioning the judge for a raise—$426,000 a year, to be exact. Dude's name? I am not joking here, was Andrew Wallet.

[00:06:46] TESS BARKER:
And that was the first, like, really, really big red flag to me because at that point, I had learned enough about conservatorships to know that it's not really intended to be, like, a for-profit position. So it struck me as suspicious that this person was going to court and asking for, like, half a million dollars a year in payment for this position that Britney was not consenting to him holding. 

So I went to that hearing, and that was really the turning point—after I went to that hearing and saw that guy get that money, that really started me on sort of like the true crime journey around the story.

[00:07:17] NAOMI SMITH:
I think what's really interesting about Free Britney, and I think a lot of other conspiracy theories share this as well, but it's more pronounced in Free Britney, is that sense of moral righteousness.

[00:07:28] CRISTEN:
Dr. Naomi Smith is a digital sociologist at Australia's University of the Sunshine Coast. Her research specialty is online conspiracism and misinformation.

[00:07:40] NAOMI SMITH:
That also feels really good—to feel like you're on the right side of history, that you're doing something that matters and that has potentially broader social impact, and that you potentially could be righting a big wrong. You could be acting like a hero in some instances. In the narrative arc of history, that's a thrilling set of emotions to engage with.

[00:08:05] CRISTEN:
Tess and Babs weren't the only ones engaging with that thrilling set of emotions. But it was Tess's actual reporting, plus the Britney's Gram hotline, that took Free Britney mainstream.

[00:08:22] TESS BARKER:
I mean, people that were very close to Britney had started to contact us, and I was—and I guess, I mean, by the time that episode came out, it was like, we're doing proper journalism. We needed to have a lawyer look at everything that we were doing. It would have been very unsafe for us to continue to report in the way that we wanted to report a lot of the things that we were finding out.

[00:08:39] CRISTEN:
In the spring of 2019, Britney pumped the brakes on her Vegas residency and put her next album on hold. In April, news broke that she'd voluntarily checked herself into a mental hospital. Except days later, Tess and Babs got an explosive voicemail from an anonymous listener. The caller confirmed that shit was sketchy and that Britney had been in that mental health facility for months against her will.

[00:09:28] TESS BARKER:
We did everything that we could to do our due diligence. I talked to every lawyer I know. I talked to every editor I've written for, you know, we've obviously vetted the source, but it was terrifying, you know? And then that was, like, I mean, that literally overnight the story kind of exploded. So everything moved, like, really, really quickly. And it wasn't really until we were, like, on Access Hollywood that it was like, oh God, that was pretty risky, what we did.

[00:09:51] ACCESS HOLLYWOOD:
Can I have you just, in conclusion, summarize what your source, the information your source gave you so that we have it on camera?

[00:09:59] BABS GRAY:
Yeah. So we received a voicemail from an anonymous source, whose workplace we verified, who used to work as a paralegal in one of the law offices involved with Britney's conservatorship. And what he told us was that we were onto something.

[00:10:16] NEWS CLIP 1:
The hashtag Free Britney was actually started by two women who launched the Britney's Gram podcast, which examines and analyzes Britney Spears’ social media posts. And the hosts of Britney's Gram, Tess Barker and Babs Gray, are actually here with us with a little bit more on this. Hi, ladies. Thanks for being here.

[00:10:32] CRISTEN:
What got Free Britney even more attention was Britney herself responding to it and basically calling off the fans.

[00:10:42] NEWS CLIP 2:
Britney Spears breaking her silence.

[00:10:45] BRITNEY IG:
My family has been going through a lot of stress and anxiety lately, so I just needed time to deal. But don't worry, I'll be back very soon.

[00:10:52] NEWS CLIP 2:
The video is seemingly a response to the hashtag Free Britney movement, which has exploded online in the past few days. Britney fans have...

[00:11:02] CRISTEN:
She posted a short Instagram video, presumably from the mental health facility she was staying at, saying all was well and to please respect her privacy. The caption read, “Wow, there's rumors, death threats to my family and my team, and just so many crazy things being said. I'm trying to take a moment for myself, but everything that's happening is just making it harder for me. Don't believe everything you read and hear.”

[00:11:41] TESS BARKER:
We started to get DMs from a lot of people who were tipping us off to things that were going on with Britney or things that they thought were going on with Britney. And I'd say, like, maybe 15 percent of those ended up being tips that really did lead to, like, other information. But at the same time, like, the other 85 percent of them were from this fan base that we were sort of getting to know in real time. And a lot of those were not grounded in reality. Some of those were people that did seem to be forming conspiracy theories and stuff like that. 

And then there was this whole other side of it where people started to be really inappropriate to other people in Britney's orbit online, but we felt like almost sort of like this responsibility at first to be like, you guys, don't do that. Don't talk to people like that. And so it was sort of an awkward position to be in where we had kind of spearheaded this movement. 

And then it became so big that we were like, oh gosh, to what extent do we have a responsibility to kind of monitor what's going on with this big kind of movement that we've helped kickstart and make sure that people behave themselves and don't kind of cross lines and don't make threats of violence against people and things like that because it became this, like, can of worms that was so out of our control and that was so much bigger than us. And yet we were sort of in the middle of it. So it was a very stressful thing to navigate.

[00:12:57] CRISTEN:
Britney's Gram’s days were numbered. The gravity of what they were uncovering was too much for a two-person comedy podcast. Tess and Babs wanted to do right by Britney and also not get their asses sued. And for a much deeper dive on all of this, you should definitely listen to Tess and Babs’ docuseries podcast Toxic: The Britney Spears Story.

[00:13:28] NEWS CLIP 3:
You're looking at a live shot there of the Los Angeles County Superior Courthouse, where later this afternoon, Britney Spears will virtually address a judge at her own request concerning her conservatorship. It comes 13 years...

[00:13:41] CRISTEN:
On July 14, 2021, Britney Spears gave her court testimony heard around the world.

[00:13:50] BRITNEY TESTIMONY:
I've been in shock. I am traumatized. You know, fake it till you make it. But now I'm telling you the truth, okay? I'm not happy. I can't sleep. I'm so angry it's insane. And I'm depressed. I cry every day. So maybe you can understand the depth and the degree and the damage that they did to me back then. I want changes, and I want changes going forward. I deserve changes. I was told I...

[00:14:14] CRISTEN:
Britney took to Instagram and thanked her fans for their ongoing support. She hashtagged the post #FreeBritney. Free Britney now belongs to an important group of outliers—conspiracy theories that turned out to be true. Britney Spears' conservatorship was coercive, it was traumatic, and it was financially abusive. She had wanted out for years. And her ex-conservator dad, Jamie Spears, is objectively a sack of shit.

[00:14:51] NAOMI SMITH:
It really started going viral, I think, in 2021, 2022. And as someone who hangs out online, I was seeing kind of a lot of opinions about what Free Britney as a movement was—whether they were right, whether they were delusional, whether this was invasive or inappropriate in some way, if it was just super fans gone wild. 

And I thought, oh, this is so interesting. Wherever there's conflict, there's usually something socially important happening. And I'm always really skeptical of an approach that just dismisses people's concerns. I think what's really interesting about a lot of conspiracy theorizing is the reason it's so attractive is there's often a little grain of truth at the center of it. Even if the whole conspiracy is not real, there are elements of it that are very much drawn from the real world. 

So I was curious to see kind of what was driving this speculation here. And it's one of those really interesting cases where a conspiracy theory was proven right in a way. So I thought, that's so interesting. What behaviors were driving this? What made it so powerful? What turned it into sort of a social movement at the time? Because I think what was also interesting about the Free Britney movement is they broadened their scope and said, hey, this isn't actually just about Britney. This is about disability rights more broadly, and everyone should be concerned about what this means. If this can happen to you when you're famous, it can happen to you more easily when you're not.

AD BREAK 1

[00:16:37] TESS BARKER:
It's feeling like you've got the puzzle, right? It feels really good to feel like that red string goes somewhere. I think that's the number one—it’s that very satisfying feeling of, like, solving the crossword kind of feeling. 

But there's, of course, also the element of community. I mean, I think that's a big thing in conspiracy theory—just feeling like there's this world that you and the other people who are in on this conspiracy get, but that the outsiders don't get. And you guys are kind of united, and it's your job to make sure that more people know the truth.

[00:17:24] NAOMI SMITH:
There is something I like to call "sticky" about these spaces where you kind of get stuck in them because you're constantly engaging with other people who think the same way that you do. And you're forming this kind of community of expertise, in a way, around this subject. And being regarded as an expert and being able to share that with people who are similarly aligned is, like, a really pleasurable thing to do. It feels really good, and it's very emotionally engaging. 

So when we say pleasurable, we're not talking about it in the, like, physical sense; we're talking about that emotional and intellectual stimulation you get from doing something that feels fun and exciting.

[00:18:09] CRISTEN:
Does the pleasure element also apply to more harmful kinds of conspiracy communities as well?

[00:18:22] NAOMI SMITH:
Absolutely. I think the big example is QAnon. And I think it has many of the same kind of facets that we see in Free Britney, like a very passionate and engaged community. There's an archive that they're combing for clues. They're comparing notes. All of those things are very pleasurable and engaging for the individual, even though they might be harmful socially. And that's a really hard tension to sit with, but I think it's a really important tension to sit with because if you want to understand why someone is continually coming back to these communities, you have to think about what they're getting out of it. 

And I think with QAnon, there's also that element of horror underpinning a lot of their mythology, right? And we also get pleasure out of being a bit scared. Think about why we watch horror movies. There is, like, a thrill in the fear as well—that sense of being emotionally activated by being in these spaces and looking closely at the thing that you're afraid of and being able to talk about that in community with other people. And fear plays less of a role in the Free Britney movement.

[00:19:41] CRISTEN:
What do you make of repeated linkage between Free Britney and much more directly harmful conspiracy theories and communities like QAnon?

[00:19:53] TESS BARKER:
You know, it's interesting. I think this is a very interesting case, and it's a very interesting story because they're incorrect, but they're also correct. There is an element of QAnon in this online population. There literally are people who are involved in QAnon who got involved with the Free Britney movement online. I think part of that is—I don't know, I'm obviously not in the QAnon world. Maybe not obviously, but I'm not in the QAnon world at all. 

But I think maybe part of that is if you're someone who is into conspiracy theories anyway, and then something like this pops up, it's like, oh yeah, see, this is true. And then also the earth is flat, and then also there's lizard people. So I think it was kind of an easy thing for people who sort of have that mindset to grab onto. I don't know if you remember, but there was one point in the Free Britney thing where people on TikTok were saying, like, Britney, if you're in trouble, wear a yellow shirt.

[00:21:41] TESS BARKER:
And then she wore a yellow shirt the next day. And everyone was like, see, we told her to wear a yellow shirt. And at that time, because we were trying to do, like, really serious journalism where we're, like, fact-checking our sources and reading the court documents and being very serious about that stuff, people would DM us about the yellow shirt. And I was like, you guys, this is not serious. Like, don't send me stuff about the yellow shirt. Like, that is—I'm doing real journalism. 

But now, in retrospect, I do think that Britney wore a yellow shirt because she needed help. I mean, a few months later, she went to the police department and reported herself as a victim of conservatorship abuse. So, really, the truth kind of operated on this really weird gray line where it's like, if that's how your mind works anyway, okay. There was so much there to validate that.

[00:21:41] NAOMI SMITH:
So I think they're right in the wrong. Conspiracy theories are a continuum, and belief is a continuum as well. So you could believe a lot or you could believe a little, and the way in which that belief impacts the way you live in the world and the way you move through the world is also a continuum, right? So I think we often talk about these things as an either-or or a binary, like you're either a big conspiracy theorist freak, or you're a sensible, rational, logical person. And that's also not helpful because we all have strange little odd beliefs that we're perhaps sympathetic to. 

So mine is that, like, in my heart of hearts, I really want to believe that the Loch Ness monster exists. Like, I know that that's not scientifically proven. I know that that's not real, but, like, there's always that little part of us that's like, oh, what if, you know? So I think we're all susceptible to these kinds of behaviors. And the more we can understand it as, like, a continuum of behavior, as a scale of behavior, rather than as, like, an either-or, the better off we'll be.

[00:22:46] CRISTEN:
Is there a gendered element to it at all?

[00:22:50] NAOMI SMITH:
Free Britney was very much driven by women, which is also interesting because we often think of conspiracy spaces as kind of masculinized. And I think it was really interesting how they leaned into the glitter pop of it all when they were really pushing towards the end of the Free Britney, like, active period, I call it. Like, they had the pink t-shirts; their protests outside the courthouse were very bright colors, like glitter, party atmosphere, Britney tunes pumping. 

So they really leaned into, I think, the feminine tropes that we associate with Britney. And I think we can all identify with that element of feminine rage that Britney was expressing at that moment when she was committed to the conservatorship. She was frustrated. She was a new mom. She had two kids. She had a problematic ex. She was being trailed by the paparazzi constantly. And I think we can all identify in hindsight with that—that feeling of just, oh my God. And just, like, all of those feelings being so close to the surface and wanting to maybe hit a paparazzi with an umbrella after you've shaved your head. Like, I feel like that's very relatable on sort of a primal level, even though the fame is different. We all have those experiences of sort of intense emotion and surveillance as women, where you feel like no matter what you do, you can't do it right. Like, there is no pleasing people, right? 

And I think when we're now looking at Britney's behavior retrospectively, we can see that and go, oh yeah, that feels very familiar to me. I get that vibe now. But at the time, our media culture was very different, and we didn't have this language for talking about what it is to be a woman in the world that was as broadly accepted as it is now. So I think that change socially as well also helped the Free Britney movement make its case.

[00:25:10] CRISTEN:
Yes to all of that, with an asterisk that all of those big feelings brought out by Free Britney also did what big feelings do. They got a little messy.

[00:25:24] TESS BARKER:
We met some just incredible people. There were fans that were, like, flying across the country for every rally, who really are and continue to be, like, incredible advocates, not just for Britney but for disability rights, which is, I think, what this story really is—a disability rights story. But also, we became a target for some of the online fans because it is a really dark, sinister, suspicious story that kind of is stranger than fiction. So I think people—I think that's where a lot of the conspiracy stuff starts, is like, the reality is very bizarre. It is kind of stranger than fiction. 

But unfortunately, like, we had some fans who became convinced that we were agents of Jamie Spears, that we were being paid by Jamie Spears, that we were plants. We were doxxed. We were harassed. I got death threats. I had my home address published. I had to change my phone number because one person became, like, really fixated on us and started calling us nonstop and, like, recording our phone calls. So, I mean, we definitely got caught up in a negative way in some of the conspiracy theory stuff. Yeah. We got almost, like, kind of pizza-gated by some fans.

[00:26:31] CRISTEN:
I'm so sorry, Tess.

[00:26:31] TESS BARKER:
Thanks.

[00:26:31] CRISTEN:
And that kind of harmful conspiracy behavior in the name of freeing Britney hasn't entirely gone away. In late January 2023, a trio of fans were all on a TikTok live stream together and decided to group call in a wellness check on Britney. They dialed up the Ventura County Sheriff's office, and the sheriff dispatched a wellness check and reported back that Britney was fine. 

The fans' parasocial concern for her was earnest, and they did apologize for calling the sheriff afterward, but Britney was rightfully pissed. In a statement, she said, "I love and adore my fans. But this time things went a little too far, and my privacy was invaded. During this time in my life, I truly hope the public and my fans, who I care so much about, can respect my privacy moving forward."

[00:27:47] NAOMI SMITH:
I think what concerns me is that there's still a little bit of the Free Britney stuff kicking around on social media. And I think that is now potentially harmful to her. They're saying things like she's been replaced with a body double, her Instagram is now, like, AI-generated, she's somehow been captured or is still in a conservatorship. And Britney has a lot of healing to do. I think after she got out of the conservatorship, she did thank her fans for what they did for her. She addressed them quite directly. She did not experience that attention as harmful at the time, but I think now that she's trying to get her life back together and figure out what it means to be an adult in the world, able to make her own choices for the first time in years, continuing to scrutinize her every move is compounding the pain and trauma that she experienced during that time, right? 

The politest thing we can do for her at the moment, and the kindest thing we can do, is just, like, leave her alone and let her make her mistakes as she needs to. Right? So I think there's always that push and pull between when is scrutiny helpful and meaningful and able to act positively for the person at the center of things, and when is it damaging, surveilling, second-guessing, minimizing, dehumanizing? And I think sometimes it can be hard to sense when you've crossed that line.

[00:29:26] CRISTEN:
I also asked Tess if she'd noticed fans still hunting for Britney breadcrumbs—what's been called Free Britney 2.0.

[00:29:36] TESS BARKER:
I'm first-hand familiar with them because sometimes these people will comment on, like, a picture of my dog on Instagram. "Why are you comfortable being paid to be silent? Why don't you talk about Britney?" These people are, like, convinced that Babs and I have been paid off, and that is why we are no longer talking about it—Britney and what's going on with her. So I think that's part of it. Yeah, I'm familiar.

[00:29:36] CRISTEN:
Does it surprise you at all?

[00:29:36] TESS BARKER:
No, I think that there's a lot of people who, in the height of Free Britney, they felt really bad about the way that she was treated in the nineties and the early aughts. That sort of had amnesia six months later when they were being very judgmental about diagnosing her based on what she posted on Instagram or, you know, paparazzi photos that they see of her. I think that a lot of people wanted to see her dad and the other people involved face some kind of criminal charges. I think that there was an expectation of retribution. I think that's where a lot of the conspiracy theory stuff comes from too, is that there hasn't really been any retribution for those people. So I think there was an expectation for that. 

And it's like, this was an entertainment industry story. So in that way, it was, like, easy to find connections, like some legitimate connections between, "Oh, here's this person who's controlling Britney, and here's this person who's controlling Britney." But also everyone is kind of interconnected in the entertainment industry. And so then, just because somebody worked on this album with Britney doesn't necessarily actually mean that they had a hand in this other thing, but that if that was, like, how your mind works and you were looking for connections, there were plenty of those connections for you to make.

AD BREAK 2

[00:31:29] CRISTEN:
Earlier in the episode, I asked the question of what happens to conspiracy theories when they're proven true. I found an important clue to the answers in something Naomi Smith observed about the pleasure appeal of conspiracy theories.

[00:31:48] NAOMI SMITH:
The point is in anticipating and predicting. And even if it doesn't come true, you can always expand the horizon of your theory. So it could always happen next time, right? It's like, you know, waiting for a holiday or waiting for an exciting event. Part of what's fun about that is the buildup, right? So conspiracy theories are often never resolved. So you get to stay in that fun, exciting state of potential and anticipation all the time. And I imagine it could be quite a letdown when things are actually resolved, which is why it doesn't surprise me to see that there are still Free Britney people out there kicking on because that allows them to stay in this state of anticipation and potential. And I could be right indefinitely, right? You can always expand the boundaries of your conspiracy to encompass the situation or the information or the clues that are available to you.

[00:32:57] CRISTEN:
Conspiracies will be theorized. Red string will be strung. And Free Britney will always have accomplished the hard thing it set out to do.

[00:33:13] FREE BRIT PROTEST:
Chanting: Free Britney now! Free Britney now!

[00:33:25] TESS BARKER:
The thing that I'm most proud of the movement for accomplishing is the sort of broader picture issues that I think it really helped to address. Even before Britney was out of her conservatorship, California changed its conservatorship laws because of her case. Something that really was detrimental to Britney and her fight for freedom is that the way that the law was written, a conserved person didn't have the ability to contract their own attorney. That was one of the biggest issues for Britney the entire 12 years she was in the conservatorship, is she kept asking her attorney to petition to end it, and because he was making so much money off of her staying in it, he never petitioned to do it.

 So California changed its laws so that now a conserved person does have the right to retain their own attorney. And it brought the issue of conservatorship abuse, I think, to the mainstream. Like, still, I've done some other reporting around stories around conservatorship abuse and around wrongful conservatorships. And Britney Spears' name is always mentioned in those stories. You know, I talked to people who were like, oh, I didn't even know that my relative was in a harmful situation until I saw the Britney Spears thing. So it absolutely changed the way that people understand conservatorship abuse. And I think it shined a light on some of the bad actors that unfortunately are involved in the business of conserving people.

[00:34:41] CRISTEN:
In terms of the post-conservatorship story, if we look at that, what does that look like still through a lens of disability rights and kind of mental health literacy?

[00:34:57] TESS BARKER:
One thing that I don't like when people say to me, that people do say to me a lot, is like, look at her on Instagram. I mean, she's acting so weird. Is she okay? And it's like, everything that we fought for really was for her to have the right to be naked on Instagram if she wants. And I wish that more people sort of had the sensitivity to understand trauma and understand, like, how complex trauma can be and how complex somebody's behavior after experiencing especially prolonged trauma like she did can be. And it's like, look, none of us know what is a normal response to being Britney Spears. 

None of us can tell from a 30-second Instagram video or a slideshow or a reel what is going on with a person. And I don't think it's helpful to try to raise alarm bells or diagnose someone based on a social media post. And so I think that all of her posts should be taken for what they are, which is just, like, dancing videos or her showing off her body, her new bikini, or whatever. I think that people are being unhelpful when they put the conspiracy theory comments in her posts and write articles about whether or not she's actually free.

[00:36:08] NAOMI SMITH:
So if you see people kind of saying, look, it's time we leave Britney alone and give her her privacy, they've been bought off by her family. They've been paid to stay silent, you know? So it's really easy to kind of explain those sentiments within the logic of the conspiracy itself, which means that for the people who are really in deep, it can be very hard to kind of connect with them with facts and evidence because it's not about facts; it's about feelings. 

We live in a world where, like, a great amount of people, their pain, their struggles, the inequalities they face, are not taken particularly seriously by the social institutions that we encounter every day. And I think when we look at that, you think, oh, conspiracy spaces take people talking about these issues very seriously. And that's, like, being seen and regarded in that way is a very powerful thing to offer someone. So maybe we should think about how we can offer that to people in a way that's sort of a bit more grounded in the here and now.

[00:37:15] CRISTEN:
Yeah. I mean, we've got some excellent research skills potentially at work. Like, we could—I mean, applied the right way...

[00:37:22] NAOMI SMITH:
The joke about Taylor Swift fans is like, they can change the world if they set their mind to it, right? Because they are in an intense fandom. And I think the same is true for Free Britney people. There is that intensity and expertise that, when it is pointed in the right direction, is earth-shaking.

[00:37:45] CRISTEN:
At this point, are you still keeping an eye on Britney's Instagram?

[00:37:51] TESS BARKER:
I am. I still—you know, it's funny. I feel like I'm finally at a place now where I look at it, I think, pretty much the way that, like, most people look at it. It's actually kind of a relief to look at it and not have this, like, stress of, okay, what does that mean? And how am I going to explain this? And does this mean something more sinister? And what does it connect to? So I do watch it, but definitely it was like, just a spectator and not in terms of, like, oh, I want to dive super deep into what's going on here.

[00:38:22] CRISTEN:
Was that a conscious kind of unlearning process?

[00:38:30] TESS BARKER:
Yeah, it was. It was because I think I got—I was so exhausted by being so deep into it that I think I knew, like, you've got to back off, like, for your own health. And because there are other things in your life that you're interested in. I think there was a good couple of months where I really checked out from it. And then kind of slowly came back and started looking at it. And I still—I don't listen to her music as much as I used to at all. So I think that was unconscious. I think I got so deep into it that a part of me just kind of was like, I can't. Is Britney free? Um, yeah, yes. I was in the courtroom when her conservatorship ended. I think the degree to which she's not free is the degree to which—I mean, she will always be a very famous person. And I think that—I don't know how free any really famous person is. I think that fame is sort of a prison, and that, like, on top of all these other factors that have been a part of her life, she is a very big celebrity. So I think her ability to sort of, like, move through the world as a truly free person will always be hampered by fame, the fact that she's Britney Spears.

. . . 

[00:39:39] CRISTEN:
Thank you to Tess Barker. Go listen to her podcast Pop Mystery Pod. You can also hear her and Babs every week on their long-running comedy podcast Lady to Lady. Thank you as well to Dr. Naomi Smith. The paper that we talked about is open access. Just search her name and Free Britney study, and it'll pop right up. This podcast is an independent production of Unladylike Media. It's executive produced, written, and hosted by me, Cristen Conger. Lushik Lotus-Lee is our producer. Engineering and sound design is by Marcus Hahm. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions. And our theme is “Tarana” by RGift.

[00:38:06] CRISTEN:
Next time on Conspiracy She Wrote: It's the season finale! We are bringing our Red String full circle back to the baby boomers, where this whole podcast began. Because on episode two, I told y'all about my friend who got conspiracy-pilled in the pandemic. What I didn't mention was the exact conspiracy theory she told me that launched me down this rabbit hole.