Overview

Trump Chicken refers to a large, inflatable, cartoonish chicken with an angry snarl and United States President Donald Trump's iconic hair. First seen in China, the Trump Chicken has been used a symbol of protest against Trump for not sharing his tax information, among other things.

Background

In December 2016, a giant inflatable rooster with Trump's hair appeared in front of a shopping mall in Taiyuan, China. The rooster, which celebrated the upcoming Year of the Rooster in the Chinese zodiac, was meant as a comment on U.S.-China relations.^[4] As reported in The New York Times, the online shopping retailer Taobao was selling the chicken for $1,725.

On August 9th, 2017, a similar looking chicken appeared in Ellipse, a park near the White House.^[5] Trump, however, was not in the White House when the chicken at the time. Instead, the president is on a 17-day working vacation at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J.

Development

Moments after the chicken appeared near the White House, reporters and Twitter users alike, began uploading pictures of the chicken online. That day, Twitter user @SteveKopack^[6] posted a picture of the chicken with the caption "It appears some protesters have inflated this behind the White House." The post (shown below) received more than 58,000 retweets and 153,000 likes in 24 hours.

That day, Twitter user @Phil_Lewis_^[7] posted a picture of the chicken (shown below, left), receiving 400 retweets and 1,000 likes. Moments later, he posted a picture of the chicken's owner, Taran Singh Brar. He captioned the tweet (shown below, right) "Taran Singh Brar says he bought it for $1300. It's a visual protest. 'Trump is too chicken to release his tax returns, to stand up to "Putin":memes/people/vladimir-putin.'" The second tweet received more than 1,300 retweets and 4,900 likes.

Another Twitter user, @SeanLangille,^[12] uploaded a video interview with Brar, who explains his intentions. The tweet received more than 4,000 retweets and 9,300 likes.

#TrumpChicken quickly started trending on Twitter, where it mostly polarized over political lines. Pro-Trump supporters disapproved of the chicken, while the left showered it with praise (examples below).

The Trump Chicken was quickly reported by virtually all news outlets including The New York Times,^[5] The Hill,^[8] BBC,^[9] Variety^[10] and more. That day, Twitter published a Moments page on the chicken, which received more than 4,900 likes in less than 24 hours.^[11]

On Reddit, the chicken became a hot-topic for conversation. In the subreddit /r/The_Donald, Redditor f_bastiat^[13] posted a picture of the chicken (shown below) with the subject headline WHY IS IT THAT EVERY TIME THE LEFT THINKS THEY HAVE DONE SOMETHING TO OFFEND US, ITS ACTUALLY SOMETHING WE WOULD FIND COOL AF? I LOVE TRUMP AND CHICKEN, NICE TRY LIBTARDS!" The post received more than 5,900 points (95% upvoted) and 300 comments in 24 hours. On the subreddit /r/politics, Redditor ninab731^[14] posted an article from the Hill^[8] on the incident and received more than 3,000 points (95% upvoted) and 175 comments in 24 hours.

The chicken also inspired mulitple other threads on /r/The_Donald^[15][16][17] and /r/politics.^[18][19][20]

External References