Fact Check

No, This Isn't a Real Headline About 'Five TikTok Dances You Can Do to Support Ukraine'

The article was published shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Published Aug. 17, 2023

 (Cinch News)
Image courtesy of Cinch News
Claim:
A headline from an actual news organization in 2022 suggested: "Here’s 5 Tik-Tok dances you can do to help Ukraine fight Russia."

On March 1, 2022, Cinch News published an article claiming there were five TikTok dances a person could do that would support Ukraine:

Here's 5 Tik-Tok dances you can do to help Ukraine fight Russia

As Ukraine repels the Russian invasion, many influencers and social media stars are wondering how they can make this about them.

It's a fair question. Occasionally things happen in the world that, just for a moment, remind us how useless these people are to our country and how, if society crumbled, they would have nothing of substance to offer the community.

But then we snap back to our senses and remember that it's completely reasonable that they can make money and influence public opinion through impressionable and easily amused audiences by dancing.

So, if you don't do anything that provides products or services that are critical for society and humanity, then here's FIVE dances you can film yourself on Tik Tok doing that might just scare Putin into submission.

The article was published shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. We found social media posts then and now that contained the headline on platforms like Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube.

This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. Cinch News describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows:

Cinch News is a satirical publication that ridicules mainstream media and modern journalism for their bias, lying, and provocation.

For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor. We previously fact-checked a satirical headline that spread from Cinch News about "misgendering the 'Nashville shooter'" after the person fatally shot six people at a school in Nashville, Tennessee, in March 2023. (Law enforcement killed the shooter.) 

Sources

LaMagdeleine, Izz Scott. "No, This Isn't a Real Headline About 'Misgendering the Nashville Shooter.'" Snopes, 30 Mar. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/headline-misgendering-nashville-shooter/.

Mikkelson, David. "Why We Include Humor and Satire in Snopes.Com." Snopes, 15 Aug. 2019, https://www.snopes.com/notes/why-we-include-humor-and-satire-in-snopes-com/.

"War in Ukraine." Global Conflict Tracker, https://cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-ukraine. Accessed 17 Aug. 2023.

Why | Cinch News Network. 11 Mar. 2022, https://cinchnews.com/why/.

Izz Scott LaMagdeleine is a fact-checker for Snopes.

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