Satire Alert: Melting Man Festival NOT The Canadian Equivalent Of Burning Man

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

How aboot this? News is circulating on social media that Sasketchewan farmer Tom Vernon is planning to organise a Canadian counterpart to Nevada's Burning Man festival. Only instead of being held in a desert and featuring the burning of a large statue of a man, it would be held on a frozen wasteland in Canada with a huge, melting snowman as the centerpiece.

Saskatchewan farmer hosts Melting Man Festival, the Canadian equivalent to Burning Man

Since the late '80s, thousands of liberal-minded individuals have gathered in the Nevada desert for a festival known as Burning Man. If Saskatchewan farmer Tom Vernon has his way, those same free spirits will be flocking north this December to attend his festival "Melting Man."

Of course, none of it is true: the entire story is another hoax by the Canadian satirical radio show 'This is That', known for earlier hoaxes like the missing train or inmates allowed to have guns. But that URL prominently featuring 'cbc.ca' definitely fooled many people.

As we here at Lead Stories like to say: it's not because it's trending that it's true...


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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