Getting the facts straight about Lansing Facts 

What makes Frandor Shopping Center special? Why is Quality Dairy so endearing?  

Only Lansing locals — like those running the Lansing Facts page — would understand the answers to such questions.  

The satiric Lansing Facts Twitter account — @LansingMIFacts — was started by Craig Terrill in 2017.Terrill, 42, was running a professional social media account for work. He wanted to start something less serious. After consulting friends, Lansing Facts was born.  

Terrill built a Twitter audience by following Lansing businesses and interacting with them online. Lansing Facts joined Instagram in June 2018, under the same name as Twitter, but isn’t as active on it compared to other social media platforms. 

Ty Forquer, 40, was someone who often interacted with the Lansing Facts account on Twitter. After meeting through mutual friends, Terrill gave Forquer the keys to the Twitter account in early 2019. Terrill said Forquer’s involvement with Lansing Facts was a natural fit.  

“It was one of those decisions that was a no-brainer,” Terrill said. “He was writing better jokes than I was. And that’s management 101. You get people to work with you that are better than you at it, and it makes everyone better.”  

The Twitter account took off, and that’s when Forquer realized that the page may see similar success on Facebook. The two had been resisting the move to Facebook due to algorithm issues — Forquer explained how the platform often punishes users for posting too much, and Lansing Facts posted frequently. The Lansing Facts Facebook page — also @LansingMIFacts — was started in May 2019 and is now close to reaching 17,000 likes. 

“There’s a bigger audience,” Forquer said. “They behave differently. They like to interact more and comment more.”  

Both Forquer, a former City Pulse editor, and Terrill consider the Facebook page a place for their greatest hits from Twitter. The two feeds look different, with much more content on Twitter, where Forquer said he and Terrill “let everything fly, every day, and see what sticks.” He considers that to be “the beauty of Twitter.” 

“You can find these communities of people who have experienced the same weird things that you have, who have noticed the same weird billboard on I-496, or have almost gotten hit by a car in Frandor,” Forquer said. “When you see other people having these experiences, you feel a little less alone in the world.” 

Terrill explained the account as a “local Onion,” referencing the popular online satire page The Onion. Forquer described it as “hyper-regional humor.”  

“We don’t expect people much out of an hour away from Lansing to understand a lot of what we do,” Forquer said. “It’s our way of celebrating the weird little city we live in. It’s like our inside joke with the world that no one else outside of Lansing understands.”  

When people don’t understand the humor behind a post, or if they feel that the account is making fun of Lansing, Terrill said that Lansing Facts’ followers will “step in and set them straight.” It doesn’t happen very often, though. 

“I think most people understand that our joking only comes from a place of love and finding the weird quirks about our community that makes Lansing what it is,” Forquer said. 

Terrill admitted that sometimes, the humor of the account is off. He and Forquer do their best to own up to missed jokes or when something posted isn’t “100% cool.” Their followers typically will tell them when a post doesn’t read well. 

“We’re about making the community better and poking fun at ourselves, but we don't want to be mean,” Terrill said. “It’s always a fine line to walk, and we don’t always get it right.” 

The two admin post the jokes and memes as they come. Sometimes, Terrill will be more active. Other times, Forquer steps up. When one is more active, the other admin steps back. The same goes for when one may be feeling burnt out or uninspired. Longtime followers may be able to tell who wrote what posts, Terrill said.  

“We’ve just kind of done our thing, and people have come along for the ride, which is baffling to us,” Forquer said. “Also, we have developed a community that we really love. People send us pictures of the Frandor snowhill, weird potholes and whatever’s going on at their local Quality Dairy.” 

There is a small circle of people working with Terrill and Forquer in their version of a writers’ room. Emily Syrja, Dan Hartley and Tricia Chamberlain were among those who Forquer and Terrill credited for helping with the account. They help with various projects for Lansing Facts, like videos and events.  

“Those are some things we’d like to do more — is get back to the community and be less of just an online thing,” Forquer said. 

Terrill agreed that, once the pandemic is “in the rearview mirror,” he’d like to see more video projects and community events from Lansing Facts. As for what the future holds for the account, the two are confident that it will continue to grow as long as they produce good content — and as long as people continue to consume Lansing-based humor. 

“It’s easy to get lost in national stuff, news and doom scrolling,” Terrill said. “No one’s talking to you in a fun way about what is going on around you, directly. That can be a nice break for people, I think. I know it’s been a nice break for me.”