Did a man named "Arnold Bushman" light himself on fire to protest "Disney making the little mermaid black"? No, that's not true: A tweet from October 2024 with that claim was screenshotted and went viral again in early 2025. However the image in the post showed a man named Aaron Bushnell who immolated himself in February 2024 to protest the war in Gaza.
The claim appeared in a post on X (archived here) where it was published on October 15, 2024. It read:
One year ago, Arnold Bushman lit himself on fire to protest Disney making the little mermaid black.
RIP. #NeverForget
The post was screenshotted and reposted on March 13, 2025 (archived here) and went viral again.
This is what the post looked like:
(Image: screenshot from x.com taken by Lead Stories on March 15, 2025 at 17:04:19 UTC)
However the image collage used in the post has been online since at least February 27, 2024 when it appeared in a Newsweek article (archived here) titled "Cornel West Praises Aaron Bushnell" which said:
Bushnell, an American active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, set himself on fire on Sunday at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. He repeatedly yelled "free Palestine" as he set himself alight in what he called an "extreme" act of protest, later dying from his injuries.
The 25-year-old from San Antonio, Texas, posted a final message earlier that day on Facebook. The post included a link to a Twitch stream that was ultimately removed.
He wrote: "Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is you're doing it. Right now."
The current use of the image appears to be an attempt at humor although some may say it is not in the best of taste.
