Did country music star Jason Aldean say a "straight day of visibility concert" is happening? No, that's not true: This article originated from a website that labels itself satire. The site has a disclaimer that describes it as part of a network of "parody, satire, and tomfoolery." There is no evidence to support the claim that Aldean said this.
The claim appeared in an article published by America's Last Line Of Defense (ALLOD) on the Patriot Party Press website on April 2, 2024, titled "Straight Day Of Visibility Concert Is Happening, Says Jason Aldean" (archived here). It began:
When Biden announced the 'International Transgendered Day of Visibility', on Easter Sunday of all days, it angered so many people. So many good, conservative Christians in America were rightfully outraged at announcing such an evil day, but to do it on the holiest day of the year was just too much. And they're doing something about it.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
(Source: Patriot Party Press screenshot taken on Thu Apr 4 15:25:26 2024 UTC)
The article claims that Aldean said that a "straight day of visibility concert is happening" in response to President Joe Biden purportedly announcing an "International Transgendered Day of Visibility" on Easter Sunday, thus implying that "International Transgendered Day of Visibility" will take place every Easter Sunday from now on. A search (archived here) of the thousands of credible news sites indexed by Google News using the keywords "Biden" AND "announced" AND "International Transgendered Day Of Visibility" AND "Easter Sunday" AND "Angered People" produced no results to substantiate this claim.
The Transgender Day of Visibility in the U.S. was established in 2010 and has been celebrated each year since its creation on March 31.
The Biden administration acknowledged the Transgender Day of Visibility as March 31, 2024. However, Easter Day is a different date each year based on different religious interpretations of a lunar cycle, placing it on any Sunday between March 22 and April 25.
A Google News search (archived here) using the keywords "Jason Aldean" AND "Christian Conservative Patriots" AND "Straight White Male Day Of Visibility" AND "Huge Concert" AND "April 2024" produced no results to substantiate this claim.
A search (archived here) of the X platform for Aldean purportedly having said, "Straight White Male Day of Visibility," as the Patriot Party Press article claimed, revealed no results to substantiate the claim.
Lead Stories reached out to representatives of Aldean regarding the claim. This fact check will be updated if a response is received.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks that mention "Jason Aldean" and "ALLOD'' can be found here.
ALLOD
This site is part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. He runs several websites and Facebook pages with visible satire disclaimers everywhere. They mostly publish made-up stories with headlines specifically created to trigger Republicans, conservatives and evangelical Christians into angrily sharing or commenting on the story on Facebook without actually reading the full article, exposing them to mockery and ridicule by fans of the sites and pages.
Every site in the network has an About page that reads (in part):
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":sat·ire
ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites that omit the satire disclaimer and other hints the stories are fake. One of the most persistent networks of such sites is run by a man from Pakistan named Kashif Shahzad Khokhar (aka "DashiKashi"), who has spammed hundreds of such stolen stories into conservative and right-wing Facebook pages in order to profit from the ad revenue.
When fact checkers point this out to the people liking and sharing these copycat stories, some of them get mad at the fact checkers instead of directing their anger at the foreign spammers or the liberal satire writers. Others send a polite "thank you" note, which is much appreciated.
