Hello and welcome to today's installment of "can satire can ever be weirder than real life?" in which Armando Iannucci — the UK's foremost political satirist and the man behind Veep, In the Loop, and The Thick of It — challenged Twitter to replace Donald Trump with penguins in photos, suggesting that the images would still make sense.
Proposal: If you take any piece of footage of Trump in a White House meeting, and replaced Trump with a penguin, the expressions on the faces of everyone else in the room would still work. Twitter, let’s see what you can do.
And boy, did Twitter deliver.
@Aiannucci Like this? #TrumpReplacedByPenguin
Because in a time when a picture of Kim Kardashian next to a grinning Trump during their meeting about prison reform is a real thing, is it any weirder when it contains a penguin? No. No it isn't.
@Aiannucci
Looks legit.
@Aiannucci
Sure, why not?
@Aiannucci
Totally believable.
@Aiannucci #replaceTrumpwithapenguin
The penguin is honestly not the most alarming part of this picture.
@Aiannucci A historic moment
That IS how you'd look at a penguin giving a speech tbf.
@Aiannucci This almost makes him seem too likable.
THROW ME SOME FISH.
@Aiannucci Not a Whitehouse meeting, but..... #ReplaceTrumpWithAPenguin
Uncanny.
@Aiannucci Done.
Trump as a penguin.
@Aiannucci They love it when he signs the executive orders #TrumpReplacedByPenguin #TrumPenguin
Nothing to see here.
Will this do? @Aiannucci #TrumpReplacedByPenguin
And it still probably won't be the weirdest news to come out of today.
@Aiannucci