Since countering Aldean’s claim the video only contains “real news footage,” Destinee Stark has received a wave of hateful messages from defenders of the song.
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you’re tough.
Well, try that in a small town.
See how far ya make it down the road.
Around here, we take care of our own.
You cross that line, it won’t take long.
For you to find out, I recommend you don’t.
Try that in a small town.
Got a gun that my granddad gave meFlag burning is 1st Amendment protected free speech and he is threatening gun violence which is an actual crime.
It’s very telling that they thought this song was in defense of and promoting small towns. It’s the exact opposite.
For one, I doubt many small towns are having liberal protests. Largely, I imagine, because two, they’re proudly declaring they’re close minded and violent. This song is just “patriotic” violence porn over imagining someone protesting for equal civil rights. Frankly it just reminds me, a non-white person, to stay the hell away from small towns.
Is it too cruel to suggest that we let small towns fend for themselves completely if they’re so proud of it?
I’m white and it tells me to avoid small towns. These hickabilly cousin fucking dipshits scare me.
And it’s not like we haven’t let towns die before. There’s so many along railroads in the middle of nowhere that just stopped existing because people didn’t need to take trains everywhere anymore.
You got it wrong.
The implied threat to use a firearm comes after that, in regards to trying to take the firearm in question, not in regards to the section quoted.
If you’re going to point out hypocrisy, point to the accurate hypocrisy :)
See how far you make it down the road because he has a gun… which he will use as a pointing device to politely direct you elsewhere.
I mean this song is dumb as fuck but the quote is misleading.
That last line is the start of a second verses focusing on how you can’t take his granpappy’s gun - it’s not part of a continued threat from the first verse
OP definitely knew this, because the punctuation doesn’t even line up as if it were the end of the verse. This is deliberately misleading, which is weird, because the song is obviously already ridden with shit lines.
The entire thing is a threat of violence, see all the un-bolded parts. Like literally what is different about a small town in this song which forces people to stop burning flags, except that they will violently prevent you from exercising your first amendment rights?
Immediately mentioning a gun is specifying gun violence but threatening violence in reaction to free speech in general is illegal and an immoral call for vigilante justice.
Yes the implied violence and the introduction of grandpas gun are purely coincidental! How misleading of OP!
It is misleading. The second verse literally has its own implied threat.
Got a gun that my granddad gave me
They say one day they’re gonna round up
Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck
This is just how songs, paragraphs, and language in general work.
Just because the second verse literally has its own implied threat does not mean the first verse is unrelated. In songs and paragraphs adjacent sentences are typically related- its how English works- but I can’t speak for all languages.
It’s not “unrelated”. It’s just not part of the same shitty statement. It’s part of a different shitty statement.
Working hard defending this guy aren’t you?
No. I’m against people intentionally misleading others even when I agree with their general thrust.
If people stopped buying in when they were being obviously mislead, we wouldn’t have had Trump
This really shouldn’t be such a hard concept for you to grasp.
Except that’s not how songs are received. We don’t read them. We listen to them. And the two topic dog whistle is as old as Jim Crow.
Imagine listening to music and not being able to tell where different verses are. Song must be confusing!
Exactly.
Also, these motherfuckers can’t see the joke in my comment. People be trippin hard lol
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Well, looks like some of the assholes escaped reddit after all.
Flag burning is protected and threatening gun violence is a crime. What the gun violence is a reaction to is irrelevant.
It matters in this case because the quoted lyrics imply the gun is linked to the flag portion of the song but it’s the start of a different verse. Not getting the facts straight devalues the (valid) criticisms and allows people to dismiss the whole thing outright. The point can be made without being misleading or being inaccurate, so why undermine it?
But the section about having a gun immediately follows one about burning the flag? Comes across to me as hero fantasies of the flag burner escalating and giving the gun holder a justified reason to shoot them.
The fact that this is down voted… hey guys maybe listen to the actual song so you can hear how this is very obviously an entire new verse, and the gun is not related to the flag burning? Why do we care more about bashing the song than being actually correct?
Knee jerk, probably. People see the first line and don’t bother to read the rest without carrying over the initial reaction.
Which, that’s the humor of it. You start out with a jarring intro, switch to a lighthearted part, and finish with a wink and a smile. Alas, a lot of people can’t let go of their first reaction in text like they would in person. Kinda silly, but this is the internet lol.
Modern society cares more about fighting perceived evil than they do about being good, or honorable. Even the truth must not stand in the way of the wrath of the angry mob of keyboard warriors.
this is very obviously an entire new verse, and the gun is not related to the flag burning?
One story or one argument can very much span multiple different verses. Plenty of songs will use different verses to each provide a similar argument to the core point of the song, and plenty will tell a single story across all verses.
And looking through the lyrics, the entire song is at any point either listing actions or hinting at consequences. Which honestly makes it worse since that effectively suggests protected first amendment expression deserves the exact same vigilante violence as armed robbery and carjacking?
maybe listen to the actual song
Honestly I’d rather not. Mostly because country is one of the few music genres I absolutely can’t stand. Just whatever it is, the style absolutely grates on me to where I struggle to make it through a single song.
Also it’s lyrically pretty lazy. Write some sentences, change words around so the syllable count matches the tempo and verse structure, throw in some loose rhymes, an identifiable chorus and some callbacks to earlier in the song and you’ve got lyrics for a song. It would be entirely forgettable if it wasn’t so disgustingly racist. And worse than just being racist, it’s all painfully obvious dogwhistles which is just insulting the listener’s intelligence
Really speaks to Republicans actual priority when the only take they can apply to anything in society is “It’s my god given American right to ensure everybody at all times knows exactly how hard my dick gets thinking about murdering them”
No, that’s not what it implies at all. No one was talking about 2A or taking guns away. He’s literally mentioning the gun in direct response to the last infraction (burning the flag). Read it again.
Read the lyrics to the actual song again
Edit: the relevant verse is emphasized
Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk Carjack an old lady at a red light Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store Ya think it’s cool, well, act a fool if ya like
Cuss out a cop, spit in his face Stomp on the flag and light it up Yeah, ya think you’re tough
Well, try that in a small town See how far ya make it down the road Around here, we take care of our own You cross that line, it won’t take long For you to find out, I recommend you don’t Try that in a small town
Got a gun that my granddad gave me They say one day they’re gonna round up Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck
Try that in a small town See how far ya make it down the road Around here, we take care of our own You cross that line, it won’t take long For you to find out, I recommend you don’t Try that in a small town
Full of good ol’ boys, raised up right If you’re looking for a fight Try that in a small town Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town See how far ya make it down the road Around here, we take care of our own You cross that line, it won’t take long For you to find out, I recommend you don’t Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town Ooh-ooh Try that in a small town
Last week Country Music Television, which initially aired the video, pulled it from rotation. But after Aldean defended the music video by stating that “there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage,” Stark said it was easy to prove him wrong
In a TikTok video that’s gotten at least 1.5 million views, Stark found that two of the clips in the video came from stock footage. One showed a woman flipping off police at at labor day event in Germany and another was a commercial stock clip of a molotov cocktail.
Lying about it and then getting caught.
Stark shared screenshots with NBC News of hateful messages she’s received since posting her videos about Aldean’s song, which included racist slurs, fatphobic remarks and death threats.
Just bizarre.
It’s not bizarre, the right wing are terrorists. This is how they respond to anyone who challenges their fiction.
That’s a very bias comment, there are hateful people on both sides. And calling a whole group of people terrorists isn’t going to do anything but divide people more.
Last I checked only one side wrote a super racist song about killing the other side of they “come to our small town and try that”.
I don’t see left wing terror attacks in this country do you? Because I see a lot of right wing ones, at pride, at power stations, at events with people reading books to children…
You have an incredibly stupid take and the “it will only divide us further” narrative is just pleading with one side to accept the terrorism of the other as not to make it worse. It’s like saying that the abused in an abusive relationship is also at fault, “They are both good people, she just makes him so mad sometimes that he hits her, she should stop making him mad” .
Also love that this is your only comment on lemmy….
The public actions taken by right-wing activists include showing up a events heavily armed, attempting to abduct politicians, and militia-style parading
This isn’t a “both sides” situation
Anyone still trying to claim “both sides” at this point are just willfully ignorant.
Or being actively dishonest with an agenda.
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If they don’t understand American politics they shouldn’t be lecturing Americans about it. I don’t go around telling people in other countries what their political parties stand for.
Is there a point to removing the default upvote your own comment?
Not all instances have a default upvote. I’m on kbin.social and it doesn’t.
Thanks for the information!
It’s really not at this point. And claiming both sides are hateful is completely disingenuous at this point. One side is making death threats, talking about holy wars against Jews and intimidating the other side. It’s like saying your raving gun toting uncle is the same as his brother who said some bad stuff 20 years ago. Sure what was said 20 years ago is awful, but the other uncle is planning to shoot up a school because it won’t teach kids that slavery was good.
The right wingers and their former president literally attempted a coup. Yes, they are idiots and did a shit job of planning and preparing and trump lost his nerve but they still tried it.
Okay well if they don’t want to be called domestic terrorists they should stop calling themselves domestic terrorists
While they’re at it they could also stop being domestic terrorists.
In all fairness if the right stopped being terrorists they’d probably not be called terrorists.
Republicans are terrorist traitors and should be treated as such.
Domestic terrorism in the US is overwhelming committed by the right. Look up the FBI’s statistics if you don’t believe me.
People are divided for a reason: because one side is full of fucking Nazis, terrorists, and their sympathizers.
Oh, and “bias” is a noun, not an adjective. Maybe try consulting a dictionary before you misuse it again.
Looks at people on the other side of the divide, ranting about the latest conspiracy theory, very against abortion (to the point of stoning women who want an abortion), saying that slavery was beneficial towards slave’s skill sets, wanting to expand child labor because “No oNe Wants to woRk aNYmoRe” (rather than no one paying enough, which seems to be the real reason):
"I think I’m good. "
Fuck right off with your both sides comment.
@FaneW @MicroWave @originalfrozenbanana
BoTh SiDeS
There is no “both sides” to this. And the radicalisation of the right wing has been a very deliberate process.
A whole group acting like terrorists is the problem here. They actually performed a failed coup.
Just something else the party of losers sucks at.
Nope
Ayo remind me real quick which political party is forcing women to give birth to babies that won’t live and putting their lives in danger? Also, which one put up barbed wire in a river to try and drown people/children legally seeking asylum? Which political party was it again that had a shit-fit about being “forced” to make a website for gay people and it turned out that never happened but legislature was made anyway because your right to discriminate matters more than treating people like human beings?
If these are the people that you willingly affiliate with then you’re one of them. At least own it.
Yeah that two sides shit isn’t going to fly anymore. There is nothing more to divide. They are literally terrorists at this point and defending it puts you right with them.
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Fundamentalists who make threats, resort to violence, and hate Americans. What should we call them?
>A representative for Aldean did not immediately respond to a request for comment from on Monday.
Ofc they didn’t. 🙄
Don’t you see? Since the whole video is news now, by definition all footage contained in it is news footage. Check mate
Bizarre? It would only be bizarre if the insecure losers didnt do this
Newsflash: unironically listening to modern country like Jason Aldean or any other arena country act, makes you an idiot. It’s a bad song, with bad lyrics, with bad music, sung by a millionaire larping as working class. Everything about Country is a lie.
That was a scarecrow.
🎶I write songs for the people who do🎶 🎶Jobs in the towns that I’d never move to🎶
I put my hands on your body… it feels like hay, IT’S THE FUCKING SCARECROW AGAIN!
Modern Pop country can go to hell. Want to listen to country, go look up Bluegrass or Folk Punk.
Or, you know, discover the roots of it all and actually come to recognize that modern music was largely ripped off non-white artists. 🤷🏼♂️
Not really.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE bluegrass.
Seems I need to broaden my folk punk knowledge, all of the stuff I’ve listened to is more ska punk-adjacent, like Syke! Life Is Awesome by BTMI.
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I’ve been trying to comb through (haha) why I’m so annoyed with the fact that Luke Combs just released a cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car. At first blush I just thought “God damn, what an appropriating prick.” I’ve always thought of it as kind of a feminist song, and since Tracy is Black, as an intersectional song. And here is some rich white country star singing it in a less good way and making mountains more money than she ever made on it.
Intellectually, I know that there are instances where men are heavily burdened by becoming default caregivers of ailing parents, but it falls on women much more often.
I realized it is a bit sexist of me that it rubs me the wrong way for a man to complain about financially supporting his female partner who refuses to work, and it feels like an empowering feminist notion when a woman has had enough of the same and moves out on her own because of it. I guess that’s a pretty backwards thinking on my part.
But also, when he sings, he sounds like he’s constipated and trying to poop.
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It bothers me that the original is much better and his just sounds lifeless and generic af. Like the videos of taking pitch correction to a bunch of classics and making them dull and ruined.
Everything about Country is a lie.
What about Swedish horror country?
I love this band so much!
I wouldn’t go far enough to say that for the reason that enjoying the instrumentals (unsure if the correct word, but I mean the melody from non-vocal sounds) is a personal taste. Most people don’t care for my taste which is mostly electronica genres not much lyrics usually, but to each their own.
Personally country music sounds like nails on a chalkboard but I wouldn’t ever say enjoying a certain sound makes someone an idiot. I have read about this story and as a whole it does sound like someone scoring points on an ignorant (and false) view that I have no interest in checking out, for more reasons than just being country and annoying to personally listen to.
Basically proving everything people are saying about the awful things that song stands for right.
Someone with better video editing skills than myself (none whatsoever) should remake this video but exclusively use footage from the January 6th insurrection.
"No shirt
No shoes
No Jews…
Strike that last one"
“You didn’t hear that”
You mean people from small towns have an enfeebled ability to tolerate rhetoric that isn’t their own? I’m shocked.
Enfeebled implies the feeble was applied to them. They were born feeble. It’s in the water.
While true, I feel their born feeble nature is then further cultivated into further feebleness in these small towns.
Fair enough
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She debunked that "“there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage,” as Aldean said in defense of the music video. She showed that some of the footage was from a an event in Canada, and a protest in Ukraine, as well as some stock footage. The article explains more.
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The title “TikToker who debunked Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town’ video…” is a little silly and confusing but the TikToker, Destinee, was pointing out how racist the music video is and also debunked Jason Aldean’s claim that all the music video footage is exclusively real American protests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKkjJAIFGNE
there are a bunch of black people in this reaction video saying it isn’t racist. watch the reaction video then come back and let me know what you think about the reaction video.
Edit: I like how people are downvoting me. I wonder how many of them are white. Watch the reaction video, then come back and let me know you actually watched the reaction video all the way through. Also let me know if you are black or white. What I’m trying to figure out is what percentage of people that are pissed are they white or black. The more knowledge we have the better off we are.
When I first started hearing about this song, and they were people feeling was racist, I thought maybe I should start asking is it racist or not?. I am a middle-aged white guy, so I’m probably not real well qualified to determine what it is or is not racist towards Black people. I can make an assumption of how people, Black people, might view it. But I’ve never walked in the shoes of a black man or a black woman.
I’ve never been pregnant and I’m not a female so there’s no way I can know what it is like to be pregnant. Nor can I figure out what it is like for the emotional stresses of what a female goes through. I can make an assumption or a guess that a certain situation might be stressful or that a certain certain situation a female might not like, but I am not a female so I cannot know it for a fact. So I would have to go talk to a female.
I’m not a Marine so there is no real way for me to know what a Marine goes through.
So I thought the best way to figure out of what do Black people think about this video is effectively go online and look at YouTube videos of Black people responding to the video. That is why I am encouraging those who are down voting this to go watch that video and then come back and respond and tell me what do you think of that video. And also to state are you black or white. for example if I get a bunch of Black people come in here and tell me yes it’s racist as hell, well then obviously that’s where Black people are at and I need to listen to that.
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When I first started hearing about this song, and they were people feeling was racist, I thought maybe I should start asking is it racist or not?
If you read the article and watch the TikTok video a person of color is telling you that she considers it racist. It’s fine if some other PoCs disagree. But the discussion here started with the opinion of Ms Stark.
He didn’t even write the song.
So? He chose to record it. Pretty sure he understands English at at least a rudimentary level, and the choice of setting for the video was NOT a coincidence. He deserves all the derision he’s getting.
I agree, I’m just a bit baffled as to why he would choose to do this song. I mean, it would be bad enough if he composed it, but to hear it and think “yes, I want to say that” is just beyond understanding for me. It’s almost like setting a trump speech to music. So. Weird.
Recent polling indicates that something like 20% of the country still think the election was stolen, so it’s not that surprising. All that Aldean did was to confirm to the world beyond a shadow of doubt who exactly he is as a person.
@gravitas_deficiency @Jakdracula
Yup. He should change his name from Aldean to Aldumb.
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity”
-Phineas T. Barnum
All the derision like being #1 or #2 on all the charts?
Guess you can’t cancel someone in a small town either. 😂
But you can “cancel” the Dixie Chicks for criticizing Bush Jr. Weird that that is what contemporary country fans can’t handle and implied threats of violence are just fine.
Small towns do enough to “cancel” themselves lmao. Keep voting for that corporate boot that turns small towns into barren shitholes full of meth and bigotry.
So there’s lots of racists that buy country music, I’m shocked, knock me down with a feather…
Almost none of them do. They’re just mouthpieces for the Nashville pop trash machine.
And their fans don’t give a shit. I’ve lurked on some Facebook posts about this in the last week and I want to barf.
Thank you for your service.
Was he forced to perform it? Record it? Defend it?
He knew there’s enough idiots who will take it up as their anthem as he rakes in the cash and laughs at how gullible his trash fans are
It’s all AI, these days. Or at least most of it sounds like some garbage an AI would write
With how garbage the lyrics are it’s definitely AI. If I had no moral scruples and was asked to write a song like this, I could do a far better job.
No different than every other samey sounding auto tuned pop star
Country…hah, they wish. A pop artist having an accent and tickling the lizard parts of uneducated people’s brains doesn’t make you a country singer
At this point I only know I’m right when I get death threats. We should wear em as a badge of honor at this point.
Probably not a good idea. People being proud of upsetting others is how we got here. And we have all seen how slippery that slope is.
It is not only okay to upset intolerant assholes, it is a service to society. Bigots literally get offended over other people’s existence. They are the ones causing the problem in the first place, and they should be made to feel unwelcome as they do to others.
There is no way for LGBTQ and minorities to live in certain communities in this country without being offensive to the white Christian Nationalist hivemind. Just the fact that they exist and want to live their lives and have their own culture is enough to upset these types.
Look up the tolerance paradox in case you somehow haven’t heard of it. We must not tolerate intolerance if we want to live in a nice society.
People who make death threats are garbage people who deserve to be upset. Nothing wrong with being proud of upsetting them.
I lived in conservative california and that sounds about right. Only thing that kept us alive was that my spouse happens to be a vet and we’re asian so we get a pass. We lived there for a while until my spouse got a job after covid. They literally think that it’s a warzone out there. So much bullshit spread about the city. Of course the news just fans the flames.
This lady I knew never went to the fashion district in LA because she pretty much believed that her blond and blue eyed kids would be snatched off the streets by minorities. The ironic thing is that we lived off the I-15 which is a huge human trafficking corridor so the kidnapping would have more likely happened closer to where they live. Also phelan is full of meth heads but you know, that doesn’t matter.
The song is about sundown towns and that makes it racist AF.
derka deherpa derr
There’s no such thing as “violent” hate mail. It’s words on paper.
And in person death threats are just spoken words. They’re both dangerous and unacceptable.
Threats are already illegal and words aren’t violence.
The words themselves aren’t violent, but they contain threats of violence. I thought that much was inferable from the headline.
By making this argument you appear to be supporting those who are sending the death threats. That’s not a good look. In every conflict in history between those who used racism as a reason to do things and those who oppose them, the racist people happened to be the bad guys. Probably not a good idea to align yourself with racists…
You’re being disingenuous. Violence doesn’t have to be a physical threat to be considered violent. If colors, coughing, and arguments can be described as violent, hate mail most certainly can. Especially if it’s threatening someones life or livelihood.
US Department Of Justice: “The “crime” in hate crime is often a violent crime, such as assault, murder, arson, vandalism, or threats to commit such crimes. It may also cover conspiring or asking another person to commit such crimes, even if the crime was never carried out.”
Merriam Webster’s definition of violent:
- 1b: extremely powerful or forceful and capable of causing damage (e.g. violent coughing)
- 4a: notably forceful, furious, or vehement (e.g. violent argument, a violent denunciation)
- 4b: extreme, intense (e.g. violent pain, violent colors)
You’re being disingenuous. Violence doesn’t have to be a physical threat to be considered violence.
Words aren’t violence. And threats are already illegal.
Words aren’t violence.
Do you need me to post the definition of argument and denunciation too? I mean it’s right there. In the definition I posted. Maybe you personally believe words can’t be violent, but that doesn’t change that they can be.
No point debating dumbasses that try to “gotcha” about semantics. Like you said, disingenuous. Troll. Edgelord maybe. Hopefully he’s not actually this stupid.
It’s just such a myopically ignorant thing to say. According to mental health professionals the effects of verbal abuse can cause a slew of issues both mental and physical, and we know bullying can lead to suicides, swatting people is literally using your words to invoke violence. Three ways words can be violent just off the top of my head. Words can absolutely cause violence, what a shitty take.
