Predictions of the World in Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Song “Californication”

Are the RHCP prophets? Some TikTokers think so and found some ‘predictions’ in the classic “Californication”.

Of course it’s impressive how the world has changed from 1999 to 2024, but… would they have bet on prophesying any current event more than 25 years ago? Surely not, or at least not with total conviction. But when it comes to predictions, “Californication” by Red Hot Chili Peppers paints itself.

This song released towards the end of the 90s recently went viral, just not because of its genius nor because of its iconic music video. The thing is that some Internet users have criticized the verses and think that the theme predicted some recent world events.

Some of these supposed prophecies have to do with things like the relevance that Greta Thunberg in recent years or even those theories about a Bill Gates project to implant microchips in people’s brains.

And it must also be said: other these ‘predictions’ in “Californication” by Red Hot Chili Peppers They have to do with themes or events that are not exactly unavoidable.

As some users have mentioned on social networks, certain verses talk about things that are constantly repeated, although now they make more noise due to the hyperconsumption of information in the digital age.

But hey, the truth is it’s also fun to jump into these conspiracy theories all of a sudden, right? Let’s check the most commented ones.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers song opens with the verse “Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind’s elation”translated as “Psychic spies from China try to steal the emotion from your mind”.

For TikTok conspiracy theorists, this would be a reference to an FBI report from last January in which, as the Associated Press indicates, an attempt by Chinese hackers to implant malware was stopped in American infrastructure.

The reality is that Anthony Kiedis in his biography Scar Tissue from 2004 said that that verse came to him on a trip to New Zealand. On the street, he met a woman who had mental problems and she was just yelling a bunch of random stuff about ‘Chinese psychic spies’.

In 2018, it was already being heard in different media. Seeing a teenager attend to climate activism with such fervor was something unusual for the world. And then, the young Swede made even more noise following a powerful speech at the UN in 2019 where he addressed world leaders pointing out their practically zero action against climate change.

Since then, Greta Thunberg became a figure that gets a lot of media attention. For this reason, social media conspiracists believe that “Californication” by Red Hot Chili Peppers refers to the young Swedish activist in the line “And little girls from Sweden dream of silver-screen quotation” (little Swedish girls with the dream of appearing on screen).

However, this line has another background. It is believed that it refers to young foreign women who come to the United States with the ambition of becoming movie stars, but who often they end up acting in low-profile movies or even in the pornographic industry (this is understood by the other verse that says “hardcore soft porn”).

Within the conspiracy theory of “Californication” by Red Hot Chili Peppers, this must be one of the most general references. “Pay your surgeon very well to break the spell of aging” (pay for your surgery to break the spell of aging) would be an allusion to the trend of cosmetic surgeries.

And in that sense, the fan videos use the Kardashians and other celebrities who have encouraged –directly or indirectly– this trend as part of the sometimes stormy Californian/Hollywood culture (which is the metaphor of ‘Californication’).

Cosmetic surgeries are not a new activity, if we are honest. But now more than ever, networks and the internet bombard us at all times with sculptural bodies and practically unattainable beauty stereotypes.

According to the alleged predictions of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Californication,” the verse “Born and raised by those who praise control of population” (born and raised by those who praise population control) would be a reference to the attempt of some technology magnates to allegedly use their technology for world domination.

And there, they give as an example everything that happened at the time with the issue of the microchips that Bill Gates was rumored to want to implant in people in COVID vaccines. This is as conspiratorial as possible.

The thing here is that theories about world and mental dominance through technology have always existed. Pearl Jam mentioned them at the time in the video for “Evolution”. So, it is not a new topic and much less one that can be called a prediction.

What is more interesting is that that Red Hot Chili Peppers verse could ironically refer to population/birth control and how many families of past generations are really large.

But hey, at the end of the day, those predictions are also theories and whether they don’t, it is worth interpreting the song as the case may be. But for you, what real meaning does the song have? There they tell us…