“Unmasking” the Truth: An Exploration of Biden Body Double Conspiracies
By Pranoy Dutta & Max Beard
Following his victory in the 2020 election, Joe Biden has presided over the Oval Office. Or has he? While Biden (or “Biden”) has appeared all across public addresses, TV spots, and social media for the past few years, a fringe conspiracy theory has caught fire, first on conspiracy-driven websites and eventually on mainstream social media. The theory purports that the shadowy elites who run the world have replaced the real Joe Biden with a body double, assisted by deepfake technology. While the evidence is scant, the theorists seem convinced, leading us to explore the question of who really occupies the West Wing, and how we have arrived at such a point of suspicion.
A History of Deepfake Technology
Deepfakes are digital media which reproduce a person’s likeness onto someone else or in a made-up scenario. An early example of this sort of technology is the Interval Research Corporation’s 1997 Video Rewrite software, a tool which allows for automatically editing a video to change someone’s lip movements to look like they are saying something else, for movie dubbing. “Photoshopping” became a term used to describe using software tools like Adobe Photoshop (1987) to edit images
Modern deepfakes, especially videos, became possible through the invention of the Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) by Ian Goodfellow in 2014. GANs are made up of two models, a generator and a discriminator. These models compete in a zero-sum game where the generator tries to create an image or video which the discriminator cannot tell whether it was generated by the model or not. This “evolutionary arms race” allows the model to eventually generate images or video that are very realistic, and the use of a discriminator network allows for the constant tuning of deepfakes to become more and more realistic.
Noteworthy Claims of Body Doubles
- Vladimir Putin has one of the most elaborate systems of claims surrounding potential body doubles/deepfakes. Speculation surrounding his health has swirled around him for his entire presidency, but the war in Ukraine and Putin’s extreme caution during the COVID pandemic have given conspiracies new strength. Recently, Russian state TV showed two “live” looks at Putin in different places, fueling speculation.
- Donald Trump has also faced allegations of having a clone, especially with the idea that the deep state assassinated him, but elites didn’t want to disrupt public order.
- Catherine Middleton, Princess of Wales, has faced deepfake allegations after her health caused her to step away from the public eye and when she published old and edited photos on Twitter. This was later revealed to be due to wanting to step out of the public eye after a recently revealed cancer diagnosis.
- John Fetterman, U.S. Senator, faced similar allegations after taking a leave of absence and returning with a different appearance. These claims had added believability by being connected to Fetterman’s strokes and mental health issues, causing conspiracists to believe that Democrats didn’t want to risk losing an election to replace him, so they created a body double.
In order to compare the elements of the Biden body double conspiracy with other conspiracy theories, it is helpful to first define a conspiracy theory and its elements. Broadly speaking, a conspiracy theory is an allegation that global power structures and causes of events are different from what’s publicly claimed. Key elements of conspiracy theories include a lack of epistemological evidence and deductive reasoning, a disproportionate existence on the right politically and online, and an accompanying culture and group of insiders around which the conspiracy lives and changes.
“Deepfake” or “body double” conspiracies display many of the properties of conspiracy theories: they are typically about elite members of society, there is an element of deception of the public, and they are difficult or impossible to falsify. In addition, they show two of the most important signifiers of conspiracy theories: patternicity and agenticity, wherein people who believe the theory see patterns in many disparate events and then ascribe the pattern to some actor with malicious intent (Konda, 2019). The theory that President Joe Biden has been replaced by a body double, assisted with deepfake technology, has all of these elements, and in particular looks to be created with the purpose of undermining trust in the US government. The theory was popularized on Twitter on July 27, 2022, with a tweet comparing two images of Biden which received 12 thousand retweets and 36 thousand likes.
First of all, the fundamental claim of any conspiracy theory is that the power structures that actually exist are different from what is publicly claimed. In this sense, the Biden deepfake allegations fit well into this idea. Furthermore, they also are based on prior conspiracies. Biden deepfakes have been connected to the Clinton crime family theories, lizard person theories, and implicitly to one world government/deep state theories (because someone must want/be able to kill/replace Biden) (Something Really Strange Is Going on with Biden… Did You Notice?, n.d.). Furthermore, the Biden replacement theories tie into the more mainstream narrative of Biden’s old age and perceived feebleness. Similar theories have existed about Obama, Trump, and almost every president, but with the rise of deepfake technology, claims about Biden seem to be more technologically plausible.
Another conspiracy element that connects with these allegations is their almost uniquely online and social-media based presence. These theories have never gained any traction on traditional media platforms, beyond articles debunking them. Furthermore, right-wing influencers have amplified these claims, often with a kind of in-group language and tone that allows the claim to be laughed off as a joke if confronted with evidence. This also ties into another key conspiracy element: a lack of evidence and an inability to be proved with traditional epistemological methods. Websites like “stopworldcontrol.com” and other conspiracy theory sites either show no or very little evidence, often doctored images, and these ideas spread through social media and later are retroactively justified with more “scientific” evidence.
The “evidence” in almost every one of these conspiracies is simply an influencer saying something along the lines of “come on, this body double is too unbelievable” or “how stupid do they think we are?” (George Alexopoulos [@GPrime85], 2022). Of course, when the tweets are as vague as a video of Biden and the caption “come on”, the conspiracy begins to turn into inside joke/dog whistle territory, whereby members of an in-group signal allegiance to the in-group through phrases which only mean something within the group (Brian Cates — Political Columnist & Pundit [@drawandstrike], 2023). This line of commentary (jokes/vague references as opposed to in-depth research) aligns with the more online and “conspiracy as culture” side of conspiracy theories, which allows plausible deniability if one is pressed on the subject.
Finally, another aspect of conspiracy thinking which ties into the Biden deepfake conspiracy is the idea that elites are suppressing the populist, authoritarian leadership that common people need. Within MAGA culture, which generally accepts the 2020 election as stolen and illegitimate, accepting the Biden replacement theory allows them to further delegitimize his political power and position. Thus, instead of viewing Biden as a legitimate ruler that the majority of voters selected, they can view him as a puppet of an elite which suppresses their right to select a legitimate leader.
Put together, the various elements of the Biden deepfake/replacement conspiracy fit neatly into the generic elements of a conspiracy theory, especially in the modern day. From its online presence to its lack of evidence to its weaponization of legitimate grievances to its connection to other conspiracies, the Biden deepfake conspiracy warns of a dangerous precedent for future leaders should it become mainstream.
References
Brian Cates — Political Columnist & Pundit [@drawandstrike]. (2023, October 19). They’ve been pretty good up until now making sure he never spends too long in a hot room so the mask will start coming off of his chin. Here the mask is starting to coming loose, it is visible and you can see the bulging in the chin area. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/drawandstrike/status/1714836151830258149
George Alexopoulos [@GPrime85]. (2022, July 27). My eye can detect the uncanny valley instantly. This is 100% deepfake technology. They pasted Biden’s face on an actor. I’d bet my career on it. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/GPrime85/status/1552331245123735553
Konda, T. M. (2019). Conspiracies of conspiracies: How delusions have overrun America. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226585932.001.0001
Something really strange is going on with Biden… Did you notice? (n.d.). Retrieved April 2, 2024, from https://stopworldcontrol.com/biden/
