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Fact Check: Is Micah Parsons’ Penn State Dance Video AI Generated?

Suresh Menon
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Micah Parsons; Image Credit: USA TODAY Sports and X

Micah Parsons has had a stellar career in the NFL so far. Since entering the league in 2021, the Packers DE has undeniably become one of the best at his position, becoming the only player since 1982 to record 12 or more sacks in each of his first five seasons.

He is also a five-time Pro Bowler and multi-time First-team All-Pro, fondly loved by fans in Dallas and Green Bay. On paper, Parsons’ NFL career is as perfect as it can get. Yet there is one aspect of his football journey that has consistently made him a figure of ridicule: a dancing clip from his Penn State days that seems to resurface multiple times every year.

Claim: Micah Parsons, as part of Penn State’s football freshmen group, danced in the Thon 2018 pep rally, where he is seen dancing girlishly and even twerking on stage.

Source of the Claim: News aggregators and popular X pages like ‘Fear Buck’ have made it a habit to resurface the video and flood their followers’ feeds with it at least once a year.

Verdict: True. The dancing video is real. Penn State freshmen have a long-standing tradition of participating in the THON pep rally. This also includes an annual rite of passage, which involves dancing with their classmates at the event.

In 2018, five-star recruit Micah Parsons and his crew decided to bust some moves to popular songs like Backstreet Boys’ Move Your Body. They also shook their legs and hips to a Nicki Minaj song, where freshman defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos sported the rapper’s look while Parsons busted his moves next to his teammate.

It is unclear why the DE chose to twerk on stage. What is clear, however, is that he is not proud of it. Last year, when Parsons appeared on Twitch streamer Silky’s stream and was asked about the veracity of the video, he denied it outright, yelling that it is AI-generated.

But there is a clear YouTube video of the said clip from 2018, an era where AI was just a theoretical forecast in science journals. Moreover, multiple articles and reports from 2018 have clearly mentioned Parsons as one of the participants in the dance.

So, unless there is time travel in play, Micah Parsons’ denial stands false. His viral Penn State dance video isn’t AI-generated.

Post Edited By:Samnur Reza

About the author

Suresh Menon

Suresh Menon

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Suresh Menon is an NFL writer at The SportsRush with over 700 articles to his name. Early in his childhood, Suresh grew up admiring the famed BBC of Juventus making the Italian club his favorite. His love for soccer however soon translated to American football when he came across a Super Bowl performance from his Favourite Bruno Mars. Tom Brady’s performance in the finals left an imprint on him and since then, he has been a die hard Brady fan. Thus his love for the sport combined with his flair for communication is the reason why he decided to pursue sports journalism at The SportsRush. Beyond football, in his free time, he is a podcast host and likes spending time solving the Rubik’s cube.

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