In July 2021, a widely-shared tweet appeared to show a remarkable moment of symmetry during a demonstration in the United Kingdom — a police officer on horseback, swinging a baton, facing a protester wearing a jacket with the Ralph Lauren Polo logo of a polo player on horseback swinging a mallet.
The poster, Tom Moylan, added the humorous caption, "Never meet your heroes":
The photograph was also shared repeatedly on Facebook in the days after July 10.
In reality, the Ralph Lauren Polo logo on the protester's jacket was the result of digital editing after the fact, rather than the picture being a record of a remarkable moment of visual symmetry. As such, we are issuing a rating of "False."
It was captured for the AFP agency by the photographer Daniel Leal-Olivas, on June 6, 2020. The picture was taken near Downing Street in London, during a protest against racial injustice sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes, during an arrest in May 2020:
The "Polo" logo — first introduced by Ralph Lauren in 1971 — was digitally added by Marijn Achternaam, a graphic designer who specializes in fake, ironic brand advertising and product tie-ins on their Instagram page, which they describe as "Bridging the gap between art and advertising." Achternaam posted the original phony photograph on June 18:
