TikTok sleuths discover Jason Aldean's music video of protest footage features multiple clips from demonstrations outside the US

• Jason Aldean released a music video praising small-town communities in America.
• Aldean featured clips of protests, but many of said demonstrations did not occur in America.

Jason Aldean's newest music video, praising American small towns, features multiple clips of protests outside of the US, including Canada and Ukraine, TikTok sleuths discovered.

Aldean's "Try That In a Small Town," applauded by conservatives like former President Donald Trump, depicts images of people burning American flags and police confrontations with protesters during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

Aldean sings about protesters spitting at police and rails against perceived criminals that "carjack an old lady at a red light." He also references a gun his grandfather gave him and invites people to "try" the types of activities that he imagines would "fly in the city" in his small town to see how far they can "make it down the road."

However, Destinee Stark, a content creator and activist based in Ohio, pointed out that much of the footage in the video is from nowhere near the small town in America that Aldean fantasizes about defending.

In a series of TikToks posted Thursday, Stark uncovered multiple instances where stock footage is employed in the video. In one example, a woman flipping off protesters is a clip from Germany being sold as stock footage. In another video, Stark identifies what she believed to be footage from a 2013 protest in Ukraine.

"So the consensus of Aldean's video is that he's protecting his small community from rioters and protesters protesting the police, you would think he would actually use footage actually from America," Stark said in a TikTok. "You know, it would be difficult to protect your small town in America from a festival taking place in Berlin, Germany."

Aldean claimed, "There isn't a single video clip that isn't real news footage" when responding to the backlash to his song in a statement on Twitter posted Tuesday.

Multiple outlets also uncovered that multiple clips featured in the video originated in Canada. One clip appears to be from the 2010 G20 protests in Toronto, Rolling Stone reported.

Stark told Insider she began looking into the protest footage on a hunch. After discovering the stock videos and international protest footage she felt it was imperative to educate others on what she found — even while dealing with what she called "vile comments" from Aldean's supporters, including death threats.

"When dealing with controversial political issues like what protesting looks like in America, I think it's really important to make sure that we are consuming truthful, accurate information," Stark said, "because the alternative is consuming misinformation which has the ability to instill fear and paranoia that leads to situations where young people are going to protests in towns they don't live in, armed with rifles they're too young to own, to protect property they have no relation to; and that fear can push people to do impulsive, irrational, and dangerous things."

The pro-gun, ultra-nationalist anthem and accompanying video garnered criticism online after people pointed out that it was filmed at a courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, where a Black man named Henry Choate was lynched in 1927. Gun-control advocates and scholars of racial violence say the video contains promotions of violence, racist undertones, and references to sundown towns.

Aldean denied that his song was "pro-lynching" in his lengthy Tuesday statement, saying there wasn't "a single lyric in the song that references race." Instead, he said, the song is about "the feeling of a community that I had growing up." Aldean grew up in Macon, Georgia, the state's third-largest city, with over 150,000 residents.

Stark told Insider that even if Aldean did not intend the racist undertones, the video and song still include "coded language used to stereotype people of color."

"On the surface level, most people would no say racism is present because it mentions nothing about race specifically, and I'm here to educate people on how figurative language and imagery are used historically in literary works of art, which I believe music is, can uphold racist messaging," Stark said.

The music video was later pulled from being played on Country Music Television. The company has not made a public statement, and a spokesperson declined to comment to NPR.

Representatives for Aldean and director Shaun Silva, who has directed country music videos for stars like Carrie Underwood and Luke Bryan, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.