Twitter users have been duped by a headline that read ‘Luke Bryan pulls video from CMT’, as tensions surrounding the Jason Aldean Try That In A Small Town situation run high.
Jason Aldean’s Try That In A Small Town music video has been the talk of the country music community this week, as the internet debates the optics of the singer filming in front of a building where a historic lynching took place in 1927. And with tempers running high on social media, many users have failed to check their sources, after being presented with a story that read ‘Luke Bryan pulls video from CMT’ and taking it at face value.
Satirical ‘Luke Bryan pulls video from CMT’ headline hits Twitter
“Luke Bryan just pulled his videos off CMT to support Jason Aldean” announced Pamela Hensley, a self-proclaimed “Cali conservative among a sea of WOKE idiots” on Twitter on Friday, July 21. “Good for him. Every country singer should do this. CMT is woke garbage.” She continued.
Echoing Hensley’s sentiment, another tweeter, ‘@TheThe1776’ congratulated Bryan for taking a stance, alongside a picture of an article with a headline that read: “Luke Bryan pulls his videos from CMT over Jason Aldean debacle: “Folks, it’s time for the Bud Light treatment”.
Of course, when Hensley was asked to provide a source for this claim, the country music fan followed up with a link to an article of the same headline that had been published by Uplifting Today, a satirical news site known for its irreverent parody articles.
Had he, or the thousands of other users unknowingly sharing the fake headline read the fine print at the bottom of the site, they would have clocked the warning message, which starts with the line “Uplifting Today produces news satire and parody for global publication” and goes on to say that “Any real, semi-real or similar names, places, people, products, services and locales are used purely for satirical purposes, and the corresponding story details are purely fictional.”
Why did Uplifting Today joke about Luke Bryan and CMT?
Uplifting’s joke about Bryan and the Country Music Channel (CMT) derives from the recent controversy surrounding fellow country singer Aldean’s latest music video, which was removed by the CMT in the wake of the debate about the song’s message.
The headline was jokingly suggesting that Bryan was removing his videos from the CMT in solidarity with Aldean, despite the fact he has not yet commented on the matter.
The reference to the ‘Bud Light treatment’ is a nod to the recent string of boycotts that began earlier this year when conservative beer drinkers ditched the light lager en masse after the brand collaborated with Dylan Mulvaney, a trans influencer.
Upon hearing that the story was actually fake news, one user who had attracted just shy of 25,000 views on her initial tweet that celebrated Bryan “standing up for free speech”, opted not to retract her statement, but rather doubled down and decided to “Let it fly”, insisting that conservatives still plan on “taking our damn county back.”
Uplifting Today joked about ‘Aldian Day’ and the ‘Plaid Flannel Community
It would appear that the majority of people who were sharing the Bryan CMT headline had not read the article, let alone the fine print, as anyone who had read it would clock that it wasn’t sincere straight away.
Included in the fairly lengthy piece was a false claim about Bryan challenging other artists to write their own songs about life in all towns (they reported that Billy Ray Cyrus was set to follow Achy Breaky Heart with Achy Breaky Cart – a song about “a dangerous run-in at a rural Walmart.”).
Uplifting also poked fun at the “Plaid Flannel Community”, who we can assume to be country music lovers, and joked that small towns had been so inspired by Try That In A Small Town that they had decided to declare ‘Aldian Day’ a national holiday.
With that being said, the anger within the country community and among internet conservatives regarding this week’s debacle does feel significant, so don’t be too surprised if you start to see similar headlines about Bryan and CMT that aren’t parodies.
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