About

Confused Reporter Jonathan Swan, also known as Reporter Reading Paper From Trump, is an exploitable image macro series depicting Axios journalist Jonathan Swan taking a piece of paper from Donald Trump with a confused expression during the 2020 Axios interview on HBO. The format is typically used by adding a perplexing question or absurd artwork to the paper the reporter reads, to which he then responds with a puzzled look. The meme was popularized on a number of social media platforms and sites in early August 2020.

Origin

The original clip that the meme is pulled from is seen during an Axios interview at the White House with President Trump and reporter Jonathan Swan, released on July 28th, 2020, specifically the scene where Trump hands him a piece of paper that displays statistics about COVID-19. During the clip^[1] (seen below), the two can be seen arguing about various stats on the coronavirus, and at some point, Trump hands the chart over to Swan as he expresses confusion. On August 3rd, HBO released the interview on YouTube,(since deleted) where it received more than 11.2 million views, 171,000 likes and 97,000 comments in roughly three days.

The exact first use of the interview as a meme format is unknown, but the earliest versions appeared online around August 4th. One such example was uploaded by Twitter^[2] user KTSoItGoes early in the morning that day, where the paper reads “How does milk know when it is yogurt?” The tweet (shown below) received nearly 500 likes and 105 retweets and comments in roughly 48 hours.

Spread

In the following days, several meme templates were uploaded to Reddit’s /r/MemeEconomy subreddit, helping to spread the format. On August 4th, 2020, Redditor^[3] ethunt_ posted such one template variation, receiving over 35,000 upvotes and 800 comments in roughly 32 hours. On August 5th, Redditors kurtanglesmilk^[4] and Flikadawrist^[5] posted two additional versions.

On August 4th, Twitter^[6] user DeathStarPR tweeted a Star Wars variant of the meme (seen below, left) and received 3,200 likes and 931 retweets and comments in roughly 48 hours. That same day, Twitter^[7] user GarbageApe tweeted another example (seen below, right), receiving over 1,900 likes and 140 retweets and comments in 48 hours.

On August 5th, Redditor^[8] nclarke1234 posted a version using the scene to the /r/memes sub (shown below, left), receiving over 135,000 upvotes, 860 comments and numerous Reddit awards in 24 hours. Shortly after, Redditor^[9] theawesomehobbes posted another variant to the /r/dankmemes sub (shown below, right), receiving over 122,000 upvotes, 720 comments and several Reddit awards in 24 hours.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References