It's Melania Trump's 49th birthday, and for the occasion, the White House tweeted her an odd birthday post that has sparked several online memes.
The Internet is ablaze wondering about the photograph that accompanied the White House's birthday greetings for the First Lady of the United States.
The salutation was simple enough, "Happy Birthday, @FLOTUS." However, what was curious about it was the photo that accompanied the post. It inspired several questions among social media users as to how that specific one was picked out of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of pictures of the First Lady.
Internet users are abuzz over the significance of choice, which was perceived as something that did not make any sense. It was a shot taken of the First Lady Melania in the White House Oval Office back in March.
That was during the meeting between the President of the United States Donald Trump and the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis. Mrs. Trump was pictured facing front but looking away from the camera, somewhere to her left side. She sat on the cream-colored sofa alone wearing a green overcoat and nude high heels, with her legs crossed.
Melania was seated alone, but the space behind and beside her sofa was packed with photographers in all manner of positions, kneeling or standing while taking pictures, adjusting cameras, smiling, standing about, and such, but their attention was not directed toward the FLOTUS.
The puzzlement over the choice of the picture was not that the First Lady did not reek her usual high fashion chic but that its composition was simply strange and unexpected. And as many have pointed out, there have been many shots of Melania across the years which would have been an appropriate birthday shot.
Plus, of all Melania's shots from that specific day, the one picked to represent her 49 years in the world was the one taken from that angle which had made her appear as though she was set apart from what was going on about her. The FLOTUS seemed enigmatic in it to some.
Some social media users were wondering whether the post represented a sort of cryptic statement. But after the initial surprise and questions, the Internet stopped reading into it and instead began a meme parade.
Many of the memes featured a Photoshopped version of the picture where Russia's President Vladimir Putin was placed smack beside the First Lady. The image took on several versions, with other familiar and well-known figures being supplanted, including even Kellyanne Conway, the political consultant, and counselor to the U.S. President Trump.
Of the one where the actor Keanu Reeves appeared on the sofa with Melania, one user even suggested the planted image needed to be "supersized a bit." Another meme featured Michelle and former U.S. President Barack Obama on the other end of the sofa with the FLOTUS.
While everyone else has appeared to turn Melania's birthday into an amusing meme-fest, others are still waiting for Donald Trump's greetings, wondering whether he forgot again. It is remembered that the President's Twitter greeting last year had been a controversial and puzzling one.
In his birthday greetings then, besides an inauguration photo of himself and Melania holding hands and a birthday greeting scrawled over it, the image curiously sported what seemed to be the American flag minus eleven stars of the supposed 50-starred United States flag.
At that time, many became bewildered over only 39 stars which appeared on that flag, as one user on Twitter queried "which states" did the President "expel" or "nuke"?
