So, after nearly a full day of promoting a story labeling the redoubtable Reddit meme generator HanA**holeSolo the source of President Trump’s WWE vs. CNN logo wrestling gif, it turns out that CNN may have botched the story. HanA**holeSolo apologized for his myriad wrongs and stated that he never meant to promote violence. CNN threatened to out HanA**holeSolo’s identity if he reneged on his apology.
And the meme Trump tweeted wasn’t generated by HanA**holeSolo. CNN shot first.
According to BuzzFeed, “one user pointed out that what Trump tweeted wasn’t actually HanA**holeSolo’s GIF.” Trump’s gif included both video and audio – whereas the Rebel smuggler wannabe’s gif did not include audio. Furthermore, the original HanA**holeSolo gif “was shorter, had a different aspect ratio, and had a WWE logo in the corner. … Not even the colors are processed in the same manner. … HanAssholeSolo’s GIF has an NTSC aspect ratio, because it was cut directly from a taping of analog Westlemania footage. Trump’s video has an aspect ratio of 16:9.”
BuzzFeed continues:
Someone downloaded the GIF that HanAssholeSolo originally posted to Reddit. Then that person cropped it to better fit a video player like Facebook or YouTube. Then they went through the effort of syncing it back up with audio from the original clip. Then that person put it somewhere where Trump or one of Trump’s people could see it and download it. Then whoever found the video version had to get it to Trump’s phone.
Or it’s possible that someone went looking for the same WWE clip to imitate the HanA**holeSolo meme. BuzzFeed suggests that the actual gif came from Facebook, not Reddit. In any case, it’s not quite as simple as Trump grabbing the meme and retweeting it to the world.
Which means that even CNN’s take — that Trump is somehow responsible for the other content from HanA**holeSolo — wouldn’t make any sense. If Trump never saw the original meme, why would he possibly be expected to know what else the original guy was putting out?
Oopsies.
