The next day, Tucker Carlson, citing Libs of TikTok, was condemning the ads on Fox News, using anti-gay and anti-trans rhetoric. On November 22, Balenciaga withdrew the campaign and issued two apologies. On Saturday, November 27, Kanye West publicly criticized celebrities for not speaking out about Balenciaga, a brand he was long associated with until they cut ties over his anti-Semitic comments. The next day, West’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, one of the brand’s biggest faces, said via social media that she was “rocked” by Balenciaga’s “disturbing” campaign.
The story has become viral catnip for conspiracy theorists, who suggest that a cabal of child molesters is doing their job in plain sight, mocking the rest of us. Just take a look at the hashtags #BalenciagaGate, #BalenciagaGroomers, #BalenciagaPedos, which are full of bizarre conspiracies, including one objectively empty statement that Balenciaga’s chief designer has been photographed holding bloody wrists.
The controversial influencer Andrew Tate Said Balenciaga Executives Were “Satanists” and “pedophiles telling you they are pedophiles.” (“I don’t know for sure if the Balenciagas are Satanists or whatever,” Venti told BuzzFeed News, “but I can see why some would jump to that conclusion.”) incorrect claims that Balenciaga means “Do what you want” in Latin.
“I definitely want to be clear: The controversy around this is legitimate,” said Alex Kaplan, a senior researcher at Media Matters for America who studies the spread of QAnon conspiracies. “Balenciaga has admitted it. That being said, I have seen some on the far right, particularly in the world of QAnon, link it to the broader conspiracy theory they push that this is part of the alleged cabal of pedophile and child trafficking rings. That’s still not real. But they’re trying to use it as a way to push that.”
So what was Balenciaga thinking? To understand, you need to brush up on your media theory. “One way to explain this phenomenon is that companies try to encode particular messages into their products and advertisements,” said Steven Buckley, a professor of media and communications specializing in American politics and social media at the City, University of London. For fashion brands like Balenciaga, the message they want to encode conveys luxury and prestige.
However, that’s not the code the audience has to crack if they don’t want to. “They can choose to accept these intended codes, or they can choose to reject the intended meaning and instead decode and interpret them in their own way,” Buckley said, citing a theory devised by the late media scholar Stuart Hall.
