On 21 March 2016, a photograph purportedly showing President Obama pointing and laughing at a nude portrait of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump started circulating on Twitter. However, the photograph is a fake on multiple levels.
First of all, the nude portrait of Donald Trump seen here is not something the GOP hopeful commissioned or posed for. It's a sort of commentary" titled "Make America Great Again" created by artist Illma Gore, who never saw Trump in the altogether:
"Make America Great Again" was created to evoke a reaction from its audience, good or bad, about the significance we place on our physical selves. One should not feel emasculated by their penis size or vagina, as it does not define who you are. Your genitals do not define your gender, your power, or your status.
Simply put, you can be a massive prick, despite what is in your pants.
Second, President Obama didn't encounter and react to Gore's work in front of cameras. The image seen here is a manipulated one; in the original photograph, President Obama was pointing and laughing at works that incorporated images from Beavis and Butthead:
The original photograph of President Obama was uploaded to Reddit (in a subreddit called r/Photoshopbattles) on 12 March 2016,, where users were encouraged to creatively alter it. One of the participants inserted the painting of Trump into the original image, and the results were soon spread widely across the Internet.
Finally, the photograph of President Obama pointing to works incorporating Beavis and Butthead characters, on which the Trump-version manipulation was based, has been disclaimed as well. Vincent Torres, the director of the Austin-area Guzu Gallery, averred that he created it to promote a series of art prints:
An Austin area art gallery gets into Obama fever. The 'Guzu Gallery' is home to collectable art, collectible vinyl toys, art books, graphic novels, and Photoshop masters.
Guzu Gallery Director Vincent X Torres is responsible for the altered image. He wanted to promote his 'Half Human' series of art prints and posted the image to Guzu's Facebook page.
The Guzu Gallery also hinted on Facebook that the image was not real:
In other words, an artist's imagined take of Donald Trump's naked body was Photoshopped into an image which itself was a digitally manipulated photographed created to promote an art gallery exhibit:
