About

Unflattering Donald Trump refers to various humorously timed photographs of United States President-elect Donald Trump that are rumored to offend him. Many of the images have been widely circulated on Twitter and spawned numerous photoshopped variations.

Origin

On November 21st, 2016, the news blog Politico^[2] reported that Trump complained to various television executives and anchors about "photos of himself that NBC used that he found unflattering," according to an unnamed source who attended the off-the-record gathering at Trump Tower. On November 24th, 2016, musician Charles Johnson tweeted a photograph of Trump along with the message "I hear Donald Trump really hates this photo: So make sure not to retweet it. Ever" (shown below). Within one week, the tweet gained over 29,100 retweets and 16,400 likes.

Spread

On November 25th, Twitter user @PixMichelle^[8] tweeted several photographs of Trump along with the hashtag "#TrumpleChin" (shown below, left). On November 26th, Twitter user @Marmel^[9] posted a profile photograph of Trump prominently displaying the subcutaneous fat sagging below his chin, juxtaposed next to a photo of a pelican (shown below, right). Within four days, the tweet received more than 12,600 retweets and 10,900 likes.

On November 27th, Fusion^[3] published an article about the unflattering photographs' online circulation. On November 28th, 2016, The Ellen Show Executive Producer Andy Lassner tweeted the Trump profile photograph, urging followers to retweet the image (shown below).^[1]

The following day, Redditor LZMRaul posted the photograph to /r/photoshopbattles,^[4] inviting viewers to digitally alter the picture. Within 24 hours, the post gathered upwards of 17,200 votes (65% upvoted) and 1,700 comments, along with many photoshopped variations of the image (shown below). In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the photoshop meme, including UpRoxx,^[5] Crave^[6] and The Poke.^[7]

Search Interest

External References