Why is Internet ‘thanking’ Beyonce all of a sudden? ‘She knows’ trend explained

Has your social media feed somehow transformed into streams of memes and posts showering Beyonce with ‘Thank You’ notes, whilst absolutely terrified of her as J. Cole’s “She Knows” in the background? Are you just as lost as the other person why this emerging TikTok trend has suddenly blown up into a movement in itself? If you answered yes, stick around till the end to finally fathom the conspiracy theories and magic of satire at work.
Beyonce and her husband, Jay-Z, are often deemed godlike, untouchable entities in the music industry. A new conspiracy theory on social media isn’t helping them attain a relatable identity, pushing them further away from it and positioning them as people to be feared. This internet rhetoric took shape at a time when disgraced mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is at the centre of a bazillion headlines since his September arrest on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. The embattled artist is known to have shared a longtime friendship with Queen Bey and her rapper husband, with the couple even having been spotted at P Diddy’s infamous parties.
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Fans have since noted how numerous musicians have often thanked Beyonce on stage, even when their victories have been unrelated to the ‘Cowboy Carter’ songstress. The most unforgettable case in the bunch undisputably harks back to 2009, when Kanye West notoriously interrupted Taylor Swift during her VMA acceptance speech. “I’mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time!” he said at the time, inviting many visuals of dropped jaws and infinite gasps.
Forbes also referred to Adele’s 2017 Album of the Year win at the Grammys. Not only did the English songbird sing praises of Queen Bey as the “artist of my life” during her speech, but she was also ultimately linked to an urban legend. The Skyfall hit-maler broke her trophy that night, and years-old speculations suggested she did it intentionally to share a piece of her Grammy with Beyonce. Although the Mean Girls-esque fabrication was proved false, the rumour has just added extra spice to the ongoing viral trend series with its resurgence.
While expressing gratitude to one’s creative inspirations isn’t unheard of during the awards season, the new ‘Beyonce trend’ has been all over the place in light of recent developments tied to Diddy. The conspiracy theory-turned-meme is no longer restricted to TikTok. This past month, other SNS platforms have also adopted the satire as their own as netizens have doubled down on habitual comments about how one can’t afford to forget thanking Beyonce if they hold their lives dear.
In the meantime, other strands of the theory have also gone back to allude to the death of one of the most celebrated R&B singers of the ‘90s: Aaliyah. Peaking at the very early stages of her career, the songstress had a long road of milestones ahead of her. However, her path was tragically cut short as two months after her self-titled album’s debut in 2001, she died in a plane crash in the Bahamas. The incident followed soon after she had wrapped up filming her music video “Rock the Boat.”
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Elsewhere on social media, you will now also find netizens perceiving Beyonce as the leader of a secret, cult-like group. Furthermore, some of these (far-fetched?) speculations are even weighing out the possibility of Queen Bey playing an active role in not only Aaliyah’s death but also those of Michael Jackson and Left Eye. This is because J Cole raps about them in his hit song “She Knows”: “Only bad thing ’bout a star is they burn up/ Rest in peace to Aaliyah/ Rest in peace to Left Eye/ Michael Jackson, I’ll see ya/ Just as soon as I die.”
Another angle to the theory conjectures that Cole’s song implies that Beyonce “knows” all about Diddy’s ‘white’ parties and even all that happened in the wee hours after the majority of guests left. 
With the discourse around the musical couple blowing out of the water, J. Cole’s “She Knows,” an 11-year-old song, also more than came back to life. Its resurgence is undoubtedly attributed to the new-age meme culture. The track was plugged in video after video as the background music choice, insinuating Beyonce and Jay-Z’s alleged suspicious involvement. One particular video showed names ‘Shawn’ (Jay-Z’s real name) and Knowles (Beyonce’s last name) highlighted, suggesting that Cole’s song title was a subtle nod to their names.
It didn’t help that Diddy’s first name is also “Sean,” which shares the same pronunciation as Jay-Z’s name. What made matters worse was that the 2013 hit tune, which again found life on social media amid the explosive conspiracy theories, was removed from YouTube in the last week of September. Alleged claims arose that Jay-Z’s label, Roc Nation (signed Cole in 2009), had supposedly issued a DMCA takedown notice to get rid of the song this year. Akademiks remarked, “Doing this just makes them look guilty, who on their team approved this lmao.”
However, Variety’s report eventually clarified that a string of songs were erased from the platform due to a legal dispute between YouTube and SESAC, an organisation that “licenses the public performance of over 1.5 million songs on behalf of its 15,000+ affiliated songwriters, composers, and music publishers, which include such familiar names as Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, RUSH, Adele, Jack Harlow, Ariana Grande, Disclosure, Zac Brown, Rosanne Cash, Hillary Scott of Lady A, Lee Brice, Margo Price, Nicky Jam, Blanco Brown, and many more.”
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Regardless of where this meme train is headed, not everyone has favourably reacted to the trend. Some Beyonce fans torched these conspiracy theories, saying that they were being used to fuel a smear campaign against the iconic musician. One of the Beyhive members fumed on X: “I hate how artists showing appreciation for a woman who’s paved the way for so many is now turning into a joke. Beyoncé’s music has transcended generations, she’s raised many of the people who unironically thanked her, it wasn’t bc they were trying to survive?? survive what??”
Another fan responded, “Its unfortunate the way its brainwashed people, they fall for this narrative created by clowns who can’t stand successful black woman been running the game for 20yrs minding her business and having a lovely life and never been involved in drugs or a major scandal thru her career.”
A third replied, ‘I am SO tired of Beyoncé being the butt of everyone’s jokes. She is one of theee last greatest entertainers, and she is constantly disrespected.”
Soon enough, racial layers were also introduced to the debate: “It’s ONLY racist and I won’t elaborate further. This would be national news if people were playing with Taylor Swift’s name like this. It’s fu**ing sick.”