Despite freezing weather in Texas knocking out power and heat in homes across the state, TikTok users are still trying—and failing—to prove that the snow is fake, Insider reported on Monday. One post with over 250,000 views shows a woman attempting to melt a snowball with a hairdryer. According to Insider, the conspiracy theory—centered, like so many, around Bill Gates secretly being behind it—has existed in some form since 2014. Another video, posted to Twitter, shows a woman trying to melt a snowball with a lighter, only to no avail. “To our government and Bill Gates—thank you, Bill Gates, for trying to tell us this is real fuckin’ snow,” she can be heard saying. The snowball appears to be burning instead of melting, with a black spot growing on it. However, according to Popular Science, the black spot is from the butane of the lighter, whereas the snowball is sublimating—going straight from a solid to a gas—instead of melting.At least 32 people in Texas have died in the very real deep freeze, according to The Washington Post.
