Is image of funeral home van with anti-vaccine message real? Fact Check

An image of a van, apparently belonging to a funeral home business, with an anti-vaccination sentiment printed on its sides, is spreading across social media.

MIXTURE

The image, below, has the words “don’t get vaccinated” printed on the sides, along with the company name and website right below, Wilmore Funeral Home.

The sub-context of the photo is that the van depicting in it is actually promoting a pro-vaccination sentiment, with the idea behind it being that if you don’t get vaccinated, then that is good business for funeral homes.

The photo itself is real, and many images of the same van have appeared online (below) which effectively dismisses the idea that the image has been digitally manipulated somehow.

However, does the van really belong to a genuine funeral home which had decided to promote vaccinations in such a dark-humored and [potentially] nuanced way? No. It’s not a real business.

Firstly, the website printed on the side of the van – wilmorefuneralhome.com – whilst a real website, reads simply “Get vaccinated now. If not, see you soon.” and nothing else. (The text links to a vaccine registration website.) There is no website of a real funeral home at that web address. Additionally, according to the WHOIS data on the domain, the website was only registered a handful of weeks (from the time of writing) on August 30th 2021, shortly before the photos of the van spread online.

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Secondly, we could find no records of a business with the name Wilmore Funeral Home in North Carolina, where the van was allegedly spotted. There is no [real] website, nor any contact information, nor any registration of a business with that name in the Funeral Home directory of the North Carolina Funeral Directors Association.

Thirdly, and the final nail in the coffin for this claim, is that the van is actually a digital billboard van belonging to an advertising company called Crenshaw Visions (it’s contact information can be seen on some photos of the van). People can pay to hire the van and have their message displayed on it as it travels across North Carolina.

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The van was hired by a man named David Oakley, creative director at BooneOakley advertising agency, who hired the van from Crenshaw Visions. Oakley explained the funeral home concept to local media.

The idea came about when we thought about who would really benefit from people not getting the shot and you kind of go back to the simple fact that people are dying that aren’t vaccinated, so who benefits from people dying? A funeral home,

To summarise, the photo is real, but the business is fake. As such, we’ll give this the rank of Mixture.