On a Tuesday morning in March, a curious wave of enthusiasm rolled across social media. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani had just canceled a $9 million McKinsey contract, and within hours, comedians, operatives, and parenting influencers were all praising the move in strikingly similar language. It looked like an organic consensus. It was choreography.

The mayor’s director of new media had emailed hundreds of influencers a script contrasting the savings with Eric Adams’s wasteful spending. Some who echoed that language that morning had received the memo. At least one commentator who posted nearly identical praise never did. Good luck telling the two apart, because that’s the point.