2/24/2020

#Wattlegate: Is the President Digitally Touching Up His Neck? An Investigation

It started as a stupid joke, as these things do. I watched a video that Donald Trump had posted to his Twitter account where he was talking directly to the camera right outside the White House. He's done a bunch of these, and they have the air of a needy vlogger desperate for likes (which, to be fair, is what Trump was before president).

I was struck by how it was filmed, making it look like he was missing something, so I tweeted the dumb joke "Where's your fucking neck?" That's a Rocky Horror reference for you youngs reading this, from when it was a midnight movie staple and we'd shout things at the screen. Give us a break. We didn't have the internet, and porn took some effort to obtain. We'd yell the neck line any time the narrator appeared.

That was it. That was what I meant.

Then eagle-eyed reader Al Petterson took me more literally (as did several others) and said, "Watch that neckline. The body is not the head. This is two videos bluescreened together." So I did and, holy crap, that's exactly what it looked like. Or, more precisely, it looked like someone had digitally removed Trump's pronounced neck wattle, the prominent flesh sag that, when pinched together by a collar and tie, has the quality of a puffy vulva. Sometimes, it does lop over his collar but certainly not smoothly.

I took a screenshot which, sorry, I'll share:


Look at the smoothing on his neck. Wanna see it closer? No? Too bad.


I haven't touched it up. Look at the line between the collar and "neck." When you watch the video, you see it the digitized line (or whatever the term of art is) even more clearly. In fact, the aforementioned Al Petterson took it on himself to put together this video that focuses in on the neck area as it moves and, gotta say, it's freaky:



Other videos, some recorded at the same time as the first one here, have the same effect. It's seemingly there in more videos posted by Trump or the White House. But weirdly, it's not in a video from a couple of months ago where he's doing the same thing, speaking outside the White House.


The wattle camel toe is clear.

Look, there are way, way more important things going on. And I don't think anyone is gonna be surprised if he does demand he's turkey skin be airbrushed out. But the man is incredibly vain, and going at his vanity is one way to screw with his deranged brain as we approach the general election.

And if #Wattlegate gets under his digitally-tightened skin, so much the better.

(Credit where it's due: Twitterizer Ralph of Nazareth came up with "Wattlegate." And it's awesome.)