The Internet’s Belief In A ‘Fake Melania’ Is Intensifying After An Extremely Huggy-Kissy Appearance At A Trump Rally

Of the many outrageous things that actually exist in a world where Donald Trump is president, the concept of a fake Melania Trump is one of the few that actually don’t have much evidence out there to confirm it. Despite many instances of viral claims that the White House employs a body double for the First Lady, there isn’t any real proof of that being the case.

Like hypothetical multiple mascots at a sporting event, both have yet to appear in the seating bowl at the same time as each other. Let’s put it another way: there is no smoking Spider Man Pointing At Spider-Man meme that has confirmed much of anything. USA Today, for example, has fact checked this as recently as this week and came up with a “false” rating on the rumors, as did Snopes.

Perhaps too many people have seen Death of Stalin since it hit Netflix, or they’re just willing to believe anything after the year we’ve had. But footage of Donald Trump kissing his wife on Friday made a lot of people bring back the extremely strange conspiracy theory that there is another Melania Trump out there.

Melania has gone viral for a number of things over the years, but one of was not, until Friday, about showing any interest in the president. They just haven’t been all that affectionate over the last four years, which is why footage of Trump and Melania kissing multiple times at a rally on Friday got people talking. Mainly, about who that was suddenly kissing the president.

A number of people made the same joke about The Prestige.

For even the most skeptical it seemed Friday’s video seemed to change something in their minds.

https://twitter.com/kibblesmith/status/1322272569593135106

Still, as both USA Today and Snopes noted, distorted images, weird lighting and images captured from TV broadcasts seem to be what makes this happen and get people questioning her appearance. And as harmless a conspiracy theory it may be, these sorts of baseless theories about much more harmful things get serious legs online these days and are part of a disturbing trend of misinformation on the internet.

It’s also worth noting that the examination of body language and interpreting its meaning as fact was once a very silly thing Fox News used to get made fun of for airing. There’s no hard evidence of multiple Melanias, nor anything to strongly indicate this is anything other than a harmless conspiracy theory to add to the list of weirdness that is life in 2020. But some people seem extremely convinced this is real, which is just kind of what life online is like these days.