Fact Check: Iowa 'MAGA Fan' Did NOT Burn Down House Trying To Burn A Gay Pride Flag -- Satire Website

Fact Check

  • by: Sarah Thompson
Fact Check: Iowa 'MAGA Fan' Did NOT Burn Down House Trying To Burn A Gay Pride Flag -- Satire Website Satire Origin

Did a "MAGA fan" from Iowa accidentally burn down their house while trying to burn a gay pride flag? No, that's not true: This is a fictional story that originated on "The Halfway Post," a satire website with a clear disclaimer included in the masthead. The claim is spreading as a screenshot of a social media post that does not show the disclaimer.

The claim surfaced in a post on Threads (archived here) where it was published by @lakota_man on June 11, 2024. It was captioned:

Stupid, homophobic and homeless is no way to go through life.

burned.jpg

(Image source: Threads screenshot taken on Mon Jun 17 15:48:53 2024 UTC)

This Threads post (pictured above) is a screenshot of a June 11, 2024, post on X by @HalfwayPost which reads:

The Halfway Post
@HalfwayPost
BREAKING: A MAGA fan in lowa accidentally burned down his house today trying to burn a gay pride flag.

The post on X predates an article (pictured below), which appeared on halfwaypost.com (archived here) on June 14, 2024. The article titled, "A MAGA Fan In Iowa Burned Down His House Trying To Burn A Gay Pride Flag," had no details about the purported incident and went further to say that he also, "set his truck on fire trying to burn a DVD of Brokeback Mountain."

halfway.jpg

(Image source: halfwaypost.com screenshot taken on Mon Jun 17 16:57:38 2024 UTC)

The article was formatted like a newsletter summary of noteworthy events, except each of the brief 21 bullet points was tongue-in-cheek satire. The website's about section says this about creator Dash MacIntyre:

Dash MacIntyre is a comedian, satirist, and poet from St. Louis. He created The Halfway Post in 2017 to publish halfway real Dada news and satire, and wrote enough about Donald Trump to publish his first book Satire In The Trump Years: The Best Of The Halfway Post available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. He is currently compiling a forthcoming Satire In The Biden Years.

Lead Stories did a search using keywords "A MAGA Fan In Iowa Burned Down His House" on Google, visible here, which found no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the claim. Other fact check agencies have also reviewed this claim, including Newsweek, Reuters, and Politifact.

Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims originating from The Halfway Post can be found here.

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  Sarah Thompson

Sarah Thompson lives with her family and pets on a small farm in Indiana. She founded a Facebook page and a blog called “Exploiting the Niche” in 2017 to help others learn about manipulative tactics and avoid scams on social media. Since then she has collaborated with journalists in the USA, Canada and Australia and since December 2019 she works as a Social Media Authenticity Analyst at Lead Stories.


 

Read more about or contact Sarah Thompson

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