So… apparently, there are people who, when confronted with a record snowfall in the South, are of the opinion that it is somehow ‘fake snow’, sent by whatever evil force de jour, in order to shut down everything… because evil. There are videos of folks trying to melt the snow with a lighter, pointing at how it ‘doesn’t melt right’, ‘burns’, and has a ‘chemical smell’...
Not gonna post a link to the video, because they don’t need more traffic, but debunkery ensues: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-fake-snow-burning-snow.3026/
Basically, it boils down to ‘You folks have never had much experience with snow, have ya?’.
Snow doesn’t melt like ice does. Lighters leave soot marks on things held over the flame. Chemical smell could be anything from stray lighterfluid, to singed gloves, to folks not knowing what snow smells like.
I think it falls under a current trend towards ‘something big has happened that we don’t understand, therefore it must be [insert paranoid conspiracy]’ that we have seen growing ever since 9/11. Some folks just can’t handle ‘big things’ happening, especially tragedies, and they don’t seem ‘real’, They don’t want to admit ignorance, so they come up with an idea that fits the data. Rather than test the theory (scientific method), they just run with it, and take it as dogma.