About

Troubled Macron, also known as Sad Macron or Macron After Call With Putin, refers to three photographs that were reportedly taken of French President Emmanuel Macron in the Élysée Palace in France after a phone call meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in early March where they discussed the 2021-2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict. The photos were later revealed to have been taken a month earlier in February 2022. The three image macros became reaction images within ironic memes going into mid-March 2022.

Origin

The photos of Emmanuel Macron looking troubled and anxious were taken by the French President's official photographer Soazig de La Moissonniere. Each photo came from a separate photoshoot, all taking place in February and March 2022. The first photo of Macron standing over his chair looking down was taken on February 9th, 2022^[1] (shown below, left). The second photo of him leaning back in his chair was taken on February 18th, 2022^[2] (shown below, center). The final photo of him leaning forward with his hands on his head was taken on March 4th, 2022^[3] (shown below, right). All were posted to Soazig de La Moissonniere's official Instagram^[4] page between February and March 2022, where they earned roughly 3,000 to 8,000 likes each in roughly a month.

Spread

On March 7th, 2022, Redditor TheRealMykola posted the third Macron photo to /r/Ukraine,^[5] claiming in its description that it was taken that day in the Élysée Palace after a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Ukrainian conflict. The Reddit post (shown below) received roughly 51,600 upvotes over the course of two days. In the comment section, Redditors already started imagining funny captions for the photo, like Redditor^[6] Jonny142 who said, "Taken after a 3hr hour lecture of Russian History by Putin, To be fair i'd feel the same," earning roughly 7,600 upvotes in two days.

The three photos resurfaced as a triptych on March 7th by the Twitter^[7] account ElHuffPost, who received roughly 13,500 likes for their tweet over two days (shown below, left). On March 8th, 2022, the Twitter^[8] account visegrad24 also posted them together, claiming they were taken on the 8th after a meeting with Putin regarding Ukraine, receiving roughly 33,700 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, right). Approximately four hours after posting the tweet, the account corrected itself in a reply^[9] that received roughly 3,100 likes in less than 24 hours.

Starting on March 7th, meme creators on Twitter started exploiting the three photos and re-captioning them in quote retweets, replies and original memes of their own. For instance, on March 7th, Twitter^[10] user Klarden posted a meme that photoshopped multiple images of Macron looking troubled into one image, earning roughly 16,200 likes over the course of two days (shown below, left). Twitter users also started to relate the photos to other contemplative and brooding templates like one of Kermit The Frog looking contemplative and the Quentin Tarantino Walking Around meme. Twitter^[11] user BetaKong05 made the latter comparison, earning roughly 1,400 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Other meme creators started to reference the Macron photos in conversation with a photograph taken of the Ukrainian businessman, politician and the current Governor of Mykolaiv Oblast, Vitaliy Kim, who appeared nonchalant in talks with Putin compared to Macron. For instance, on March 7th, Twitter^[12] user SmillasSnow posted an image that received over 60 likes in two days (shown below, left). Also that day, Twitter^[13] user superocheck posted an image that photoshopped the two leaders together, earning roughly 4,900 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

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External References