Just in case you thought Donald Trump’s vanity extended only as far as the border wall he refuses to give up on, we thought we’d let you know what he’s been up to quietly — while you weren’t looking.
Actually, it was kind of while you were looking, but maybe you didn’t know what you were looking at. A new exposé from Gizmodo today dropped a couple of truth bombs on Trump’s social media habits, and it turns out that Don Jr and his girlfriend aren’t the only ones Photoshopping all their flaws away.
It’s pretty ironic, coming from the President who constantly decries “fake news” whenever something uh, unflattering comes out, to find out that his social media team is doing everything in their power to make images of him appear far more flattering than they normally would: Slimmer, better hair, a more well-fitting suit, and yes, longer fingers.
Take this Facebook photo that Trump posted, for example:
It looks totally normal, right? But when you compare it with the original — taken by his official White House photographer and posted to the official White House Flickr page, you can see the differences:
A bit of a haircut, some flattening of the shoulder pads in his suit… but they don’t stop at the superficial stuff. Look at his right cheek — he’s definitely thinner. And that pointer finger? Let’s see if this animation from Gizmodo helps you spot the differences:
That face does not move, but the finger and the fat cheek? Busted, Donnie.
And that’s not the only example. Look, another pointing picture for social media, along with the original, in an animation. More finger elongation, more shoulder smoothing, another haircut:
And again — you can see this one’s ‘shopped because of the missing logo on Air Force One, but the differences are plain as day — in particular, watch his tie as he gets thinner in the altered version of the photo:
No, that’s not just the President taking really deep breaths.
Imagine if we found out that Pete Souza had digitally altered photos of Obama before posting them to social media! The Right would have gone absolutely bonkers over it. At least we can understand why President Donald “239 Pounds” Trump has them do it.
Featured image via screen capture
