Joey Batey's debut grapples with the complexities of social media and fandom

Debating the merits of pigeon carriers is not where I expected my conversation with actor, musician and novelist Joey Batey to go, but I find myself proudly declaring my allegiance to wood pigeons over their city-dwelling counterparts. This avian tangent follows Batey’s disavowal of instant digital messaging during our discussion of the portrayal of social media and fandom in his propulsive debut, It’s Not a Cult.

Batey is best known for playing the confident, wistful bard Jaskier in Netflix’s The Witcher, adapted from Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy series of the same name. He is currently filming the fourth and final series of the show, which sees Liam Hemsworth step into the role of monster hunter Geralt, a part previously played by Henry Cavill. Batey is also one talented half of The Amazing Devil, an independent folk band he formed with Madeleine Hyland after university.

Some may think Batey’s creative pursuits, particularly his involvement in The Witcher, would necessitate a social media presence, but Batey’s online footprint is sparse. He even checks with me to see whether he has an Instagram page – he does, but the last post was a reshare of Bloomsbury’s cover reveal for the book. Before that there was nothing for over three years.

His ascetic and wary approach to social media is deeply engrained in It’s Not a Cult, which examines how parasocial relationships have been amplified, often to destructive effect, by social media. “I found it incredibly cathartic [to write],” he explains. “I have quite a strong aversion to the invasive properties of social media. The question I asked myself as I was writing the book was: ‘What would happen if people left those keyboards and acted out?’”

Set in the north-east of England, It’s Not a Cult follows the introverted Al, Callum and Melusine, members of an unnamed band who sing about the Solkats, a group of allegorical deities Callum has invented to chastise modern extravagance. After growing up in the north-east, the author “fled” the area at the age of 16 but has since returned “on a couple of research trips just to remind myself exactly what it was like growing up [there]”. For Batey, the Solkats are the answer to the north-east’s “need for a mythical foundation… It is such an odd corner of the world, caught between Celtic mythologies, whispers and stories, but there is no north-eastern mythology. I started to imagine: What would that look like? I came to the conclusion it would be quite mundane”.

The purview of the Solkats is quotidian. Hadaway, for example, is the Solkat of rust and texts at 3am in the morning, while Spelk is the Solkat of cramps and forgotten bruises. However, do not be fooled by their humble responsibilities. The Solkats are not “entirely ‘unmalevolent’” and exist, according to Callum’s mythology, to make small, profound changes to our world, for good or evil. In one passage, a follower of the band stares into a mirror and begins to hallucinate.

“That can actually happen and often some of the images that you see are quite scary,” says Batey, who adopted a similar approach, “regularly” partaking in mirror-staring sessions while writing about the Solkats “to see what came to me”. “I had to stop doing it because I stopped sleeping,” he laughs. “There was some really eerie stuff going on.”

The north-east is such an odd corner of the world caught between Celtic mythologies, whispers and stories, but there is no north-eastern mythology

In the novel, the trio have been performing innocuously for years in local pubs, until an attack at one of their gigs makes the band go viral. Their online following begins to swell as more people become enthralled by the Solkats of the band’s songs. Events quickly take a dangerous and murderous turn as the ferocity of this leaderless mass becomes uncontrollable, and Al, Callum and Melusine must find a way to control them, whatever the cost.

One of the key questions the novel asks is: what is the difference between being seen and being perceived? “To be perceived,” Callum explains to Al, “[is] losing the person you’ve fought so hard to be. In all its complexity… It transforms you into what you are to them.”

Conversely, to be seen is to be understood as the person you truly are. For Batey, the difference is significant. “I found myself becoming very agoraphobic in my 20s,” says the 36-year-old. “It prevented me from performing on stage, it hamstrung me in terms of playing live with the band as well. I started to try and understand what it was that was giving me anxiety, and I noticed it was to do with being perceived, being looked at and judged. Are they seeing you or perceiving you? They can perceive who I am; they think they know. As soon as you can separate those two words and understand that you’re seen [only] by the people who love you, then life becomes a much safer experience.”

The band’s followers interpret the songs as prophecy, idolising Callum and Melusine as prophets bestowed with arcane knowledge. To the followers, the Solkats are real, and any other interpretations are viciously decried. In one chilling line, Batey writes: “A fan appreciates your art. A follower interprets it and obeys.” Soon the thoughts and dictums espoused by members of fanatical online forums and influencer videos spill over to reality. The “spectacular” and catastrophic events that follow are an exacerbation of real-world fandom and the cult of celebrity. “It certainly represents my fear about the world right now,” explains Batey, who believes that the screen has become less of a barrier, or “gatekeeper” as he terms it, to these “hyper-fixations”. He cites how Emma Raducanu’s stalker turned up to her tennis match at the Dubai Championship earlier this year and tells me he has also been stalked. “That fear – I wanted to amplify it and imagine what would happen if [people like this] became organised, and that built in me a real terror that I wanted to embed fairly steadily throughout the book.”

Acting in The Witcher means Batey has experienced the wholesome and extreme polarities of fandom: “There are fans that are particularly militant when it comes to the truth of the books that the show is based on… Everyone’s allowed to love what they love as long as  it doesn’t devolve into barbarity, abuse or racial hatred.” Batey adds: “People get very attached to what they believe the character, what they believe the story should be. The death of the author is happening in real time. It no longer requires an actual death. It’s really bigger than that now. It’s like: ‘Okay, you’ve given us this book. It’s mine now. This is my story.’”  

Batey writes with fierce intelligence, delivering a terrifying and piercing exploration of fandom, fame and authenticity. It’s Not a Cult is a rich and provocative read that invites the reader into the world of Al, Melusine and Callum and the strange Solkats of which they sing.