Video shows prankster, not activist, speaking at Plano, Texas, City Council meeting

A man wearing rainbow-colored suspenders and a “Hillary for President” T-shirt took the lectern at a Plano, Texas, City Council meeting. 

Delivering an emotional speech, he said, “I am offended that our children are not receiving affordable gender-reassignment surgery along with hormone blockers and access to abortions. This alone is a threat to our democracy.”

He continued, “It just shows that you people do not care about our children.” His speech was shared in a Jan. 13 Instagram video that was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

(Screenshot from Instagram)

The city council appearance happened nearly two years ago; the city of Plano uploaded a video from that meeting on March 28, 2022. But the man’s public comments are being recirculated on social media without context: he’s a YouTube prankster with a history of trolling Texas city council meetings. 

American Voices, affiliated with The Daily Caller, a conservative-leaning news outlet, identified the man in 2022 as YouTuber Cassady Campbell when he spoke on a different occasion at a Plano City Council meeting. On both occasions, he introduced himself as “Marty Epstein,” who is neither an activist nor a real person but a character Campbell created.

In the March 28, 2022, meeting, Campbell described himself as a Buzzfeed editor and a former  New York Times writer who works part-time as a Starbucks barista. But PolitiFact found no proof that either publication had a staff member, present or former, named Marty Epstein or Cassady Campbell.

Campbell’s YouTube channel features videos of him speaking at other Texas city council meetings including Allen (“Wanksta tells City Council the Feds are after him“) and Dallas (“Wanksta Trolls Dallas City Council“).  

In 2023, Campbell joined other influencers in a prank for a video entitled, “We acted LGBT at LGBT Church.” The video has since been removed from YouTube. But according to reports from NBC News and The Dallas Morning News, Campbell and YouTuber Bo Alford said they were “pretending to be LGBTQ” to test the church’s theology, and acted out “stereotypical caricatures of gay men.”

We rate claims that an activist spoke about LGBTQ+ issues at a Plano City Council meeting False. ​

By

Loreben Tuquero

Staff writer

January 29, 2024

Truth-o-meter Ruling

False

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

• The man in the video is a YouTube prankster with a history of "trolling" city council meetings around Texas.

• Here’s how PolitiFact chooses which statements to fact-check.

Statement

An activist spoke about LGBTQ+ issues at a Plano, Texas, city council meeting.

Context

an Instagram post

Speaker/Target

Speaker: Instagram posts

Statement Date

January 13, 2024