Comrade Britney Spears

Submission 14,348

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About

Comrade Britney Spears is a nickname given to pop-star and recording artist Britney Spears following an Instagram post she shared that mentioned wealth distribution. The post, which went viral in March 2020, sparked a series of jokes and image edits about Spears being a communist.

Origin

On March 23rd, 2020, Britney Spears posted an image on Instagram^[1] of a quote by philosopher Mimi Zhu. It reads, in part, "We will learn to kiss and hold each other through the waves of the web. We wilk feed each other, re-distribute wealth, strike." She captioned the post, "Communion goes beyond walls 🌹🌹🌹." Red rose emoji is widely used as a sign for communism and socialism online. The post received more than 141,000 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Precursor

Before the post, Spears' supposed communist sympathies were the subject of conversation. On October 14th, 2013, the satirical website The Daily Mash^[2] published the article "Britney Spears espouses Marxist theory of labour as value." That day, Twitter ^[3] user @kisholoy2005 shared the article and wrote, "Red salute to comrade Britney!"

Over the next few years, others continued to share the satirical article and make other references to "Comrade Britney" (examples below).

Spread

After the Instagram post, others began sharing the post. That day, Twitter^[4] user @ztvnz shared the post and wrote, "comrade britney says redistribute wealth & strike." The tweet received more than 34,000 likes and 8,500 retweets in less than two days (shown below, left).

Twitter^[5] user @according2b4r tweeted, "remember when comrade britney rocked the red star at the 2002 vmas? 😍 a political statement." They included a photograph of the outfit and received more than 2,400 likes and 475 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, center).

Twitter^[6] user @LadySerenaFae tweeted an edited screenshot from the Lady Gaga's "Stupid Love" music video with the caption "Me following Britney Spears and Fran Drescher into battle in the class war." The tweet received more than 5,300 likes and 1,100 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).