Intentions: Who Are They? Part I — Chicago’s X Astroturf Accounts
SubXNews Oct 3, 2025 by @drkugler
From our earliest Substance News days we’ve been calling this out: accounts that look like harmless community feeds but are really platforms for narrative control. What started as neighborhood trivia, bar culture, or Chicago nostalgia turns out to be something else — political influence dressed up as grassroots.
This new SubX series – Intentions: Who Are They? — strips back the disguise.
Each installment will pull receipts on accounts that pretend to be casual information exchanges but are actually built to shape opinion, seed ideology, and manufacture consensus.
On the surface, they look like community feeds.
History page posting old diners.
Zoning account updating neighbors on new projects.
Nightlife brand dropping bar trivia. But scroll deeper and something shifts.
Alongside the nostalgia and neighborhood flavor come political hot takes, protest framing, and selective statistics.
This is astroturfing — fake grassroots influence, dressed up as everyday community pages.
The Playbook
Hook with trust. Start with safe, relatable content: history, food, development news, music, culture.
Build audience. Followers buy into the identity and assume the account is neutral or local.
Slide in narrative. Gradually mix in political content, often framed as “community concern.”
Exploit the disguise. By the time the pivot is obvious, the audience has already been conditioned to trust the page.
Case Studies
Midwest Antiquarian (@Eric_Erins)
Framed as a culture/history-style account, but quickly turns into commentary on raids and misconduct. Uses mainstream news for credibility, then layers on editorial claims about government overreach and “sloppy” federal operations.
Chicago Bars (@chicagobars)
Sounds like nightlife coverage, but pivots into labor politics and City Hall protest amplification. A lifestyle brand fronting for political narrative.
B Talent (@minc798)
Appears to be a zoning and development feed — restaurant closings, building proposals, neighborhood projects. But mixed in are arguments about crime statistics, dismissals of dissent as “trolls,” and heavy reliance on selective data.
Chicago History™ (@Chicago_History)
A massive nostalgia page with 156K followers, posting food spots, old signs, and Chicago pride. But mixed in: NBA “rigging” conspiracies, cold case disappearances, and protest imagery. Even when it gets basic facts wrong (promoting closed businesses as if they’re open), the engagement remains high because the identity is trusted.
Why It Matters
Astroturf accounts reshape perception. They create the illusion that “the community” agrees on an issue, when in reality it’s manufactured consensus.
A follower who came for zoning updates or Ferris Bueller nostalgia suddenly finds themselves in a feed that’s serving up protest politics, crime spin, or conspiracy theories.
That is the real power of astroturfing: the disguise makes the propaganda invisible until it’s already done.
Bottom line: These aren’t just quirky history pages or harmless zoning updates.
They’re vehicles for influence operations.
The screenshots tell the story: each one crossing the line from its stated purpose into narrative manipulation.
What’s Next in This Series
Future installments, will track how the same astroturf patterns appear across Facebook, NGOs, development councils, and news media accounts.
The disguise changes, but the method stays the same: pose as something neutral or casual, then slip in ideology once the audience is hooked.
And again, let’s be clear having a position or a bias is not the problem.
The issue is when it’s hidden behind a false front, pretending to be a friend, a neighbor, or a community booster.
The Intentions series is about pulling that mask off … HiHo
SubX.News® on-the-spot reporting
