A rumor circulating online in late 2024 claimed a video showed a mother walking into a U.S. classroom in a public school and tearing a teacher's Progress Pride Flag off of the wall.
For example, on Nov. 7, 2024, a Reddit user posted the video on the r/UnbelievableStuff subreddit with the text (archived), "Angry US woman tears down LGBTQ flag in her child's classroom, says she won't subsidize indoctrination."
Angry US woman tears down LGBTQ flag in her child's classroom, says she won't subsidize indoctrination.
byu/CrazyGuyFromTheBeach inUnbelievableStuff
Previously, in September 2023, a user on X who labeled their account's display name with the word "parody" said (archived) of the video, "They need to stop teaching this stuff to our children. Are you glad this mother did this? I am."
However, the truth of the matter was that the video was nothing more than a planned skit. All of the people appearing on screen were acting.
A Facebook user named Jibrizy originally posted the video on Facebook on Sept. 16, 2023. The user, who had more than 12 million followers, labeled his account as being a "comedian."
At the end of the original video, Jibrizy tells viewers, "Hey guys. This was all a skit. What was your opinion in the situation where the mother came down and took down the flag saying that her tax dollars isn't here to support this particular thing in school? Comment down below."
Users Believed the Video Showed a Genuine Altercation
In 2023, multiple users reposted the staged video on Truth Social. For example, Sebastian Gorka, who served as national security aide to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump during his first term, reposted the video on Truth Social, adding, "This Mama Bear has had ENOUGH!"
Other users on Truth Social said they wanted to see the teacher thrown off the school's roof, slapped, fired and jailed, just to name a few users' desired outcomes.
One Truth Social commenter said, "Our entire nation has had enough of these WOKE, brainwashed, mentally deranged teachers. Time to home school your children or put them in private schools." Another person remarked, "This is how we fight back .. this is how we take our country back from depravity and globalism." A different user said, "Good for her. Enough is enough."
In AFP.com's fact check of the video, the site cited not only the aforementioned parody account's post but also mentioned that both conservative commentator Megyn Kelly of "The Megyn Kelly Show" and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., posted that they believed the clip showed a genuine interaction between a mother and a teacher (archived).
Four minutes after Greene's first post, she added in a second post (archived), "If this is a fake or a skit, it's a very good representation of exactly how people feel."
The reporting from AFP.com also mentioned users shot a number of other videos on the same classroom set and with some of the same people serving as actors. Those videos appeared on a Facebook page named Kenyon's Friends.