Narrative Warfare: Convergence As Leverage

Dictor Von Doomcock, FUTURE RULER OF EARTH, wasn't in good spirits in his video today that talked about Culty Kathy's new Mouse Wars show. I agree that there is a power struggle going in Lucasfilm and the Devil Mouse, but what I want to address is what is only briefly talked about in FanTube, and that's the concept of leverage.

If the question is brought up at all, it is speculated that Kathy's got something on Iger that he would rather keep quiet and the price for Kathy's silence is his acquiesce to her plans. Given that we are talking about the CEO of one of the most powerful mass media corporations on the planet, that cannot be dismissed out of hand, but I think there is a more likely alternative.

As RetroBlasting pointed out over the weekend, corporate types have a certain psychological profile to them that makes them very susceptible to joining the Mammon Mob. This same psychological profile also makes them easy for a Death Cultist to manipulate them, and this manipulation involves some good ol' fashioned gaslighting.

Consider that Bob Iger, being a CEO, lives in an environment as divorced from the everyday reality of common people as any of the celebrities that he does photo ops with during PR campaigns for major company launches. Culty Kathy, being someone else who swims therein, knows that environment. Consider also that both Iger and Kathy know the social norms of this environment, which rely heavily on optics and persuasion to build and maintain one's face with the public- especially with the media. Now consider just how converged by the Death Cult this environment is, and whom said Cult proclaims is more worthy in its dogma.

All it would take is a text from Kathy to any friend, protege, ally, or famewhore looking for a crumb of clout that Bob terminated her contract and kicked her out of the Devil Mouse and within 15 minutes there would be the first volley of a constant stream of coordinated hit-pieces in every mainstream media outlet attacking him. Social media gets on board, and suddenly Facebook and Twitter (etc.) go full retard against Iger and for Kathy. If he did this at 5pm Eastern time it would all over the news online before 6pm and all over network TV and radio by 11pm Eastern; if he did this on a Friday, come Monday morning Disney stock would be tanking hard when the stock market opens and the orders go in- and that gets him nastygrams from the Board of Directors.

If Iger doesn't outright own that board, there is no direct action Iger can do to get rid of Kathy without blowing himself up, and I think we can guess that he doesn't by his actions. If Iger wants her gone, then she's got to be seen as the Head Bitch In Charge and she gets the blame for Lucasfilm's failures while more favorable parties (whose face, right now, is Favearu and Filoni) quietly please the actual customers and thus give Iger something to point to when the time comes to mercy-kill her tenure and boot her out the door- taking the Yay Ray Crew with her.

That's the leverage I speculate is in play here: Kathy's using her superior status in the Death Cult, which dominates the Devil Mouse empire, to make Iger do as she wants. Iger knows the game, so he's got to craft a narrative where she forces his hand, and he's got to give her rope to hang herself with until that point gets reached--likely due to a shareholder revolt--and until then all he can do is keep Favearu covered.

There's a lot to take in here, but we can start by not giving Culty Kathy or the Devil Mouse money because they hate us. Get yourself a copy of the book for more.