An image circulating on social media showing the Virginia State University HBCU band spelling out the name “NOLAN” is fake. The photo was created using generative AI, and the performance depicted in the image did not happen.
The image began circulating over the weekend, appearing to show Virginia State’s Trojan Explosion Marching Band forming the name “NOLAN” on the football field in tribute to Nolan Wells.
Wells, an 18-year-old Black man, was found dead near Mississippi’s Horn Island on July 6, two days after he disappeared during a Fourth of July outing with friends. His death has drawn national attention and calls from his family and civil rights attorney Ben Crump for more answers. A Mississippi grand jury recently declined to bring criminal charges after finding no credible evidence of criminal conduct, while both the state medical examiner and an independent pathologist classified the cause and manner of Wells’ death as undetermined.
Those unanswered questions have made Wells’ story deeply emotional for many people, particularly within the Black community.
That emotion also makes the fabricated Virginia State image particularly troubling.
Virginia State HBCU band did not create the formation
HBCU Gameday has confirmed with Virginia State officials that the Trojan Explosion did not perform the formation shown in the viral image.
There are also visible clues that something is wrong.
Having covered events inside Virginia State’s Rogers Stadium on numerous occasions — including being there this past weekend — the field, stadium and surroundings depicted in the image do not accurately represent the university’s facility.
Perhaps the biggest giveaway is sitting in plain sight.
The artificially generated stadium signage appears to spell Virginia as “VIRGINA.”
That is not a typo on an actual Virginia State facility. It is an artifact inside a fake image.
The photograph also contains the distorted, heavily pixelated details often associated with AI-generated imagery.
What makes the image believable at first glance is the concept itself. An HBCU band paying tribute to a young Black person whose death has captured national attention is hardly an impossible scenario. Historically Black college and university marching bands regularly incorporate culturally significant moments, tributes and messages into their performances.
But something being plausible does not make it real.
Generative AI can turn emotion into misinformation
That distinction is becoming increasingly important as generative AI makes convincing fictional images easier to create and distribute.
There are legitimate uses for the technology. HBCU Gameday uses generative tools in portions of its own creative and production process.
The problem comes when artificial content is presented as documentation of an actual event.
Had the image been labeled as a concept — “Wouldn’t it be powerful if a band did this?” — viewers would understand exactly what they were seeing.
Instead, the image has traveled across social media as though the Virginia State Trojan Explosion actually performed the tribute. It did not. That misinformation attaches a real university, real students and a real marching band to something they never did while using a painful real-life story to generate attention.
The Wells case deserves accurate reporting. His family deserves for discussions surrounding his death to be based on facts. And Virginia State deserves not to have fictional actions attributed to its band because an AI-generated image looks believable enough to share.
Generative AI can create powerful things. It can also create events that never happened.
Knowing the difference — and being willing to verify before hitting the share button — matters more than ever.