The following article by Caroline Orr was posted on the Shareblue website May 19, 2018:
Well played, BBC. Well played.
As well-wishers gathered outside Windsor Castle Saturday morning to celebrate the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, BBC took a moment to throw some royal shade at Trump.
With a simple two-word tweet, BBC Three — an official Twitter account for the British Broadcasting Corporation — masterfully trolled Trump by showing him what a real crowd looks like.
The tweet displayed a picture of the crowd assembled outside Windsor Castle and juxtaposed it against a picture of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration, topping it off with a subtle yet gloriously shady caption: “just saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
BBC Three✔@bbcthree
just saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Trump’s obsession with his inaugural crowd size unfolded into a bizarre scandal just days into presidency, eventually becoming fodder for memes around the world.
It all started the day after Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, when Trump accused the media of downplaying his crowd size in coverage of the event. Former press secretary Sean Spicer made his White House debut that day by insisting that that the crowd was “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.”
Trump later claimed that more than a million people had gathered for the event.
These claims were demonstrably false, but the White House dug in its heels and continued to insist otherwise. It was during this controversy that Kellyanne Conway infamously coined the term “alternative facts” to describe the constant stream of lies coming out of the White House.
The New York Times✔@nytimes
Comparing the crowds at Donald Trump’s and Barack Obama’s inaugurations http://nyti.ms/2j3yaDE
Spicer eventually admitted that his statements were false, but the meme lives on to this day.
BBC’s masterful trolling of Trump comes less than a month after the U.K. officially downgraded Trump’s upcoming visit to the country. The visit will be his first, if it takes place at all.
He canceled a previously scheduled trip because he was afraid he would be embarrassed by large protests.
But as Trump found out this morning, he can’t escape the embarrassment by staying at home, either.