Karen Y.
192 posts
On the Obamas being depicted as monkeys: Trump’s account posted a video about voting. At the very end, for a couple of seconds, a completely different video appears - one depicting politicians as animals (Trump as a lion, Biden as a monkey, the Obamas as monkeys, etc.). I don’t think they meant to post that second video at all. It looks like someone screen recorded the first video, and the platform autoplayed the next video in the feed before they stopped recording. Then they were careless and didn’t cut that second video out. This happens to me constantly as a content creator - if you don’t trim your screen recordings using an editor, whatever autoplays next gets tacked onto the end. Try screen recording a video on your phone right now. Watch what happens when it ends. The second video was made by someone who was thoughtless at best and racist at worst. It’s also a random video from the internet. I can’t read minds. But based on what I can see: the most likely explanation is that this was a careless mistake - and the only reason anyone’s seen that one second frame from the video is because it got accidentally tacked onto the end of a screen recording. My original reaction was “wtf?” - same as yours, probably. Then I slowed down, calmed down, did the research, and this is what I found. That said, given the obvious sensitivity of depicting any black person as a monkey - even unintentionally - it’s a good idea for Trump to make a statement taking accountability for careless management of his account. Would be nice to see from a leader.
