Lana Del Rey's Prophecy

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Part of a series on Lana Del Rey’s “Question to the Culture” Post. [View Related Entries]

About

Lana Del Rey's Prophecy is a conspiracy theory about American singer Lana Del Rey in which a 2020 Instagram post from her supposedly predicted the drama surrounding pop stars like Doja Cat, Ariana Grande, Camila Cabello and Cardi B in the following years. The theory started to go viral on Twitter around July 2023, inspiring people to expand the lore and facts about Lana's letter "Question for The Culture" and create ironic memes labeling the singer as a prophet.

Origin

On May 21st, 2020, Lana Del Rey posted a letter on Instagram titled "Question for The Culture"^[1] in which she expressed resentment towards the music industry's standards and complained about being criticized for her lyrics. She went on to call out a number of female artists who “have had number ones with a song about being sexy, wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating, etc.” Lana's Instagram account has since been deleted, but the post (shown below) garnered over 1.6 million likes in a day.

The letter resurfaced after the Doja Cat Hates Her Fans and Ariana Grande dating Ethan Slater controversies became trendings topics on social media in July 2023. Doja and Grande's names were the first to appear in Lana Del Rey's letter, as Twitter^[2] user @milkydonah speculated (shown below) on July 27th, 2023, that Del Rey might've been involved in the controversies surrounding her fellow musicians. The post went viral, receiving over 26,000 likes and 2,500 retweets in a week.

Spread

Shortly after @milkydonah's tweet went viral on July 27th, 2023, other celebrities that were mentioned in Lana's letter also became involved in controversies. For example, on July 30th, Twitter^[3] user @robgrantcrave posted a thread explaining how "people who were mentioned in Lana Del Rey's question for the culture are going down one by one." The post (shown below) amassed roughly 12,700 likes and 1,200 retweets in three days.

The letter subsequently became the subject of memes mocking the singers mentioned in Lana Del Rey's 2020 post as it spread online in late July 2023. For instance, on July 30th, Twitter^[4] user @folkloreprise posted an edited video including all the artists that appear in the letter (shown below) parodying the Next Top Model TV series intro. The post garnered roughly 1,000 views and 18 likes in three days.