Introduction
This Insight investigates how far-right X users construct their worldview around fictional media and predictive programming, that is, the notion that a nebulously-defined group known as “the elite” — supposedly consisting of members of various international organisations, US and UK political leadership and intelligence agencies, and multinational corporations — forewarns international publics of its future nefarious plans using fictional media such as movies and TV shows. In particular, this Insight explores how far-right X users claim that the movies Leave the World Behind (2023) and Civil War (2024) were attempts by the elite to issue advanced warnings for the Dali’s collision with the Key Bridge as well as future debilitating cyberattacks and a second American civil war. This Insight then further probes how fictional media mould far-right X users’ worldviews by examining the origins and development of a strange and outlandish conspiracy theory pertaining to COVID-19 vaccines known as the “pureblood” movement, whose adherents espouse definitively eugenicist and neo-Nazi beliefs. This Insight concludes by assessing how such conspiratorial thinking facilitates the erosion of critical discourse and media literacy vital to the healthy functioning of democratic societies.
Predictive Programming
Ship Wrecks and Cyberattacks
The collision of the cargo ship MV Dali with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on 26 March 2024 spurred far-right X users to declare that the movie Leave the World Behind had foretold the catastrophe. Leave the World Behind, released on Netflix on 8 December 2023, follows two mutually distrustful families on Long Island as they attempt to navigate the immediate aftermath of a blackout believed to have been caused by a cyberattack.
In an early scene of the movie, one of the families witnesses a large tanker ship run aground on a beach due to, so they later learn, a cyberattack targeting maritime navigation networks. It was this scene in Leave the World Behind to which far-right X users quickly began comparing the Dali’s collision, alleging that the film’s scene had served as a warning from the elite for the real-life incident. Far-right users opined that the Dali’s collision was by design rather than an accident, adding that former US President Barack Obama, an executive producer for Leave the World Behind, must have orchestrated the Dali’s crash.
Figure 1. A post from an account which boasts 1.8 million followers, depicting former US President Barack Obama directing both the tanker scene from Leave the World Behind and the Dali’s collision.
One far-right X user declared that the apparent similarity between the Dali’s collision and the tanker scene in Leave the World Behind “can’t be coincidence.” The ostensible proof for the movie having predicted the Dali’s collision stems, so the user alleges, from the fact that the name of the tanker in Leave the World Behind is “White Lion,” while the flag of Sri Lanka (for which the Dali was bound before its collision) features a lion on it — albeit a yellow one.
Figure 2. A post from someone arguing, using loose symbolic association, that the tanker scene in Leave the World Behind foretold the Dali’s collision.
Other far-right X users have alleged that Leave the World Behind was a warning from the elite about impending cyberattacks. Approximately 33 minutes into the movie, a simulated CNN news report appears on a TV screen displaying a map depicting the extent of the film’s fictitious cyberattack. One far-right X user called on users to more deeply scrutinise the scene, suggesting that a QR code embedded in the map may contain some deeper message because “[w]e know they [the elite] have to tell us.” When scanned, the QR code in fact leads to a tourism page for the Lake Shawnee Abandoned Amusement Park from the Visit Mercer County Convention and Visitors Bureau; the meaning of this is unclear.
Figure 3. A post from a conspiracy theory account claiming that the fictional cyberattack in Leave the World Behind foreshadows a similar real-life event.
Similarly, another X user, whose account has over 885,000 followers, claimed that Leave the World Behind, along with an educational video produced by the World Economic Forum warning about the dangers of cyberattacks, indicated that the public was being “programmed” for a future “cyber pandemic.” The World Economic Forum and its founder, Klaus Schwab, are frequent targets for far-right conspiracy theorists, who opine that the organisation is plotting to take away people’s freedoms.
Figure 4. A post alleging that Leave the World Behind and an educational video from the World Economic Forum were attempts to “program” the public.
Civil War
Another recent film that has generated much discussion among far-right X users is Civil War, produced by studio A24 and released on April 12, 2024. Far-right X users allege that Civil War, which depicts the travels of several journalists en route from New York City to Washington, DC to interview an authoritarian third-term US president, is a warning from the elite of an impending real-life second American civil war that the elite themselves are apparently seeking to instigate. Although discussion of the risk of widespread political violence in the United States has increased since the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, far-right X users have openly decried the movie — even well before its premiere — as an attempt by the elite to foment civil war through predictive programming.
Figure 5. A post from a highly influential far-right X user with over 2.5 million followers asserting that Civil War is predictive programming shortly after the release of the film’s trailer.
Figure 6. A post from a far-right X user, whose account has over 331,000 followers, calling Civil War an attempt at predictive programming.
One X user insisted that the timing of the release of Civil War “was no coincidence” and that civil war is “what they [the elite] want.” Similarly, another X user whose account has over 255,000 followers claimed that “[w]hen all else fails, they [the elite] will be the ones to ‘try’ to start a Civil War.” Another user further asserted that “[t]his movie, a masterclass in ‘Predictive Programming,’ isn’t just a film: it’s a psychological warfare tool… it’s pure mainstream deception,” adding that the film’s president is “suggested to be Trump,” whose fictional death serves as “a potential spark for chaos.”
Such comments threaten the integrity of democracy by undermining public trust in government authorities and institutions. Additionally, such conspiratorial thinking risks creating self-fulfilling prophecies whereby members of the far-right view widespread political violence — even civil war — as inevitable and thus permittable. Indeed, the latter user, in the same post, concludes by declaring that “when tyranny looms, the real answer isn’t a civil war; it’s a Revolution,” an equally alarming alternative.
Purebloods: A Wizarding War against the Impure?
One strange and outlandish trend among far-right X users is the pureblood movement, whose adherents claim that their abstention from taking any COVID-19 vaccinations means that they alone have pure blood, while those persons who received COVID-19 vaccinations have tainted theirs. Emerging initially on TikTok in September 2021, the pureblood movement takes its name from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, purebloods being those persons whose ancestry consists solely of wizards and witches, in contrast to Muggles, who are born to non-magical parents. In the series, purebloods such as Lord Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy are the antagonists who set out to purge the world of non-purebloods, and Rowling has explicitly stated that the concept has Nazi undertones.
Although early users of the term on TikTok later explained that they were joking, the pureblood movement bears a close similarity to white nationalist movements, and far-right users on X have since perpetuated the notion of being purebloods in earnest. A self-described “Post Apocalyptic War Lord” and far-right X user with over 599,000 followers praised Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic for winning the 2023 US Open Tennis tournament not based on his athletic skills, but rather his pureblood status, as Djokovic was notably opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine.
Figure 7. A post lauding Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic for his unvaccinated “pureblood” status.
Searching the hashtag #PureBlood, a variety of posts appear from other X users extolling their self-proclaimed pureblood status. One X user called on fellow pureblood users to repost a fake certificate commending their efforts for “surviving the greatest psychological fear campaign in human history.” Similarly, a user whose account has over 196,000 followers posted an image of a sticker reading “PUREBLOOD. Unmasked, unjabbed, unafraid,” calling on fellow pureblood X users to join her. In this way, self-professed pureblood status serves as a definitive identity marker engendering an exclusive sense of community, social unity, and solidarity.
This exclusivity of the pureblood movement is a salient characteristic, and some far-right X users identifying with the movement have advocated for the separation of purebloods from non-purebloods. In a repost to a user sharing what is claimed to be a preprint of an article alleging that blood from vaccinated persons is tainted, an X user proposed that purebloods establish their own blood banks, harkening to the eugenicist notion that pure blood and blood which is deemed to be impure cannot be mixed for fear of contaminating the former.
An even more otherworldly variation of this pureblood theory stems from X user The White Rabbit Podcast, who claims to be a senate candidate for the far-right Great Australian Party and whose account has over 208,000 followers. The White Rabbit Podcast proposes that the ratio between the percentage of persons with rhesus-negative blood (blood that lacks the Rh antigen and which occurs in approximately 15 percent of the United States’ population and an even smaller percentage of the total global population) mysteriously corresponds with the percentage of persons who did not receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Figure 8. A post from The White Rabbit Podcast implying that COVID-19 vaccines genetically altered recipients’ blood type.
While the conspiratorial logic is opaque and difficult to follow, this X user seems to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines genetically altered recipients’ blood from rhesus negative to rhesus positive, and that recipients of the vaccine were thus “infected” with “ape” blood by which she erroneously conflates the Rh antigen in humans with the Rh antigen found in rhesus macaque monkeys (from which the human version of the antigen took its name following early scientific research using the rhesus macaques as test subjects). Thus, in the eyes of certain members of the far-right, those deemed to be non-purebloods are not only impure, but quite literally animals. Such attitudes recall eugenicist beliefs espoused by neo-Nazis, and indeed, it is worth noting that the “88” which appears as part of The White Rabbit Podcast’s X handle might very well refer to the “88” cipher frequently used by members of neo-Nazi organisations as a code for “Heil Hitler.”
Summing It Up: What Is the Risk and What Can Be Done?
The disjointed and opaque system of logic underlying far-right X users’ conspiracy theories might, at first glance, seem to discredit their potential for garnering influence. The method to far-right X users’ madness relies, after all, on loose and apparently arbitrary associations drawn from fictional media that would seemingly have little appeal to a broader audience not already initiated into far-right beliefs. Despite their esoteric nature, however, conspiratorial posts from far-right users on X garner hundreds of thousands and even millions of views, and some far-right X accounts have just as many followers. The ease with which such posts are disseminated to wider audiences through the use of hashtags and appeals to popular and current media, in fact, facilitates their spread to new audiences.
The risk is not merely that X users come to believe in false conspiracy theories, but that the abundance of such disorienting discourse undermines users’ confidence in their ability to discern truth from fiction. Furthermore, while speculation on supposed ulterior motives behind films may, in itself, be fairly innocuous — especially since it does not necessarily involve calls for political violence — far-right X users’ use of such discourse to erode trust in government officials and institutions degrades the ability of members of the public to make informed assessments of political realities, thus weakening the integrity of democracy.
One way to mitigate this problem is for tech companies to partner with universities, schools, libraries, and civil society organisations to promote digital and media literacy education. Raising awareness of far-right and other extremist discourse, as well as teaching members of the public how to identify and report such content, empowers individuals by providing them with the knowledge and resources needed to be responsible social media users. Community leaders, in partnership with industry experts, might also stress the importance of good social media hygiene in maintaining the overall health of democracy, underscoring the cumulative repercussions of individuals’ online behaviour on community integrity while striving to inculcate the importance of normative values such as truthfulness, diligence, and resilience. Additionally, national government officials should aim to develop counter-narratives to extremist messages while further fostering constructive dialogue and emphasising the need for national vigilance in the face of rampant disinformation. Indeed, a whole-of-society approach that coordinates both private and public stakeholders at various tiers might craft the most robust approach to mitigating the spread of extremist narratives.
Mason W. Krusch is a postgraduate researcher at the Global Studies and International Relations Programme at Northeastern University (Boston, US). His work has previously been published in Small Wars & Insurgencies (Taylor & Francis) and The Defence Horizon Journal (European Military Press Association). His research interests include information operations, unconventional warfare, Nordic security, and far-right extremism and online radicalisation. He holds a MS in Global Studies and International Relations from Northeastern University and a BA in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.