(Photo: Instagram / @realdonaldtrump)
Hey: which of these thumbs up is the least convincing? They are all, to a certain degree, unconvincing. I am going to posit a theory: that a lot of the people in this photograph have never popped a thumbs up before in their life. Like, I mean, come on – look at this guy:
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Republicans don’t want to be happy; it isn’t their natural state. So the thumbs up – a very pure, human gesture of happiness and contentment – is unfamiliar territory for many.
They’ve just poisoned some water, though, so they are happy. This photo came yesterday, from Trump’s latest legislation, a bill to undo one of Obama’s final moves, abolishing the Office of Surface Mining’s Stream Protection Rule. The regulation protected rivers and waterways from waste disposal from the coal mining industry, but that has gone now. Listen, I’m no mining expert – and the mining industry, who definitely don’t have a vested interest in avoiding this, argue the rule will be costly to implement and lead to a loss of jobs – but I think signing a document that makes it OK to poison water again isn’t the greatest of ideas. But what do I know! I’m no mining expert!
I am, however, a thumbs up expert, so we’re going to go through every one of these fuckers, left to right, and ask: hey: which of these thumbs up is least convincing?
PENCE
This is how I imagine Frankenstein’s Monster would do a thumbs up if they taught the beast to emote through gesture midway through the book. You know: halfway between killing all them kids and the bit where he fucks off to the wilds of the Arctic, Frankenstein sits him down and goes: “Let’s try this. It’s called ‘a thumbs up’,” and, for hours and hours and hours, until he cries with frustration at it, the monster tries. And this is the best shit they can coax out of his stiff, dead body.
2/10
THIS GUY
Pretty sure this guy is a dad from a 30-second German language bathroom spray commercial who is proud to have cleaned the sink without any help from his wife and daughter. “WENIGER ZEIT PUTZE MAN. MEHR ZEIT FLICKE MAN!” he yells at the end.
7/10
THIS FUCKING GUY, I DON’T KNOW
This is actually a good thumbs up. This is the guy who sold your dad his last three Toyotas. He does his own commercials for the car lot he has worked his way up to buy. “Hey, come down to Tony’s,” he says, while air dancers wriggle and piss behind him. “I’ll cut you a great fuckin’ deal. Hey—” and he pops a thumbs up, like he was put on Earth by the gods to do a thumbs up, like he spent his entire five years of junior high walking into a thumbs up, turning into it shoulder first, he coulda gone all-state with this thumbs up if he wasn’t in that car crash, a thumbs up that makes the very angels sing above him, and he goes —”hey. Fuckin’ buy my Toyotas.”
11/10
PEANUT HEAD
This is the thumbs up your dad – who you haven’t been able to coax much more than a sentence out of for the past decade-and-a-half, really, have you; I mean, he’s never been a man of many words, but he’s really let your mum do the conversational leg work since 2002 – this is the thumbs up your dad does when he’s pottering about at the bottom of the garden, too far away for you to do much more than shout, and you yell at him, “DAD? DO YOU WANT A CUP OF TEA?”
6/10
THIS GUY
Illustrative photo from a long-read about what happened to all the Fonzy impersonators who made money in the 80s. A very “Six of my wives left me, one of them died!” sort of thumbs up.
5/10
DEAD GUY
This guy died halfway through this photo and didn’t even pull a thumbs up before he succumbed to it, so they had to add that hand on in post. I have to give him a N/A for this one.
THE SARTORIAL MANIAC
This thumbs up is kind of weak and defeated, like a hostage who has spent just a little bit too long sympathising with his masters while chained to a radiator. The last time this dude pulled that thumbs up out was when he went to a neighbourhood barbecue party and ended up in a conversational group exclusively made up of Mexicans, and when his wife asked him “honey, are you OK?” he popped this out.
4/10
POTUS
Trump has form for the thumbs up, so in the context this is pretty good, but also I can’t ever see him do this pose and think this is how he feels tits. I dunno, it’s just a feeling: I just feel like, when approached with a pair of tits, Donald Trump coils his fingers into tight half-fists, extends the thumbs, hovers them over each nipple briefly, then presses them in. He might say “bop” as he does it, then sadly and quietly ejaculates. Listen: I have no evidence whatsoever to back this one up. But I am allowed to think it.
7/10
THIS GUY
“I just upgraded to Windows XP!”
1/10 BUT VIEW OF ENTIRE THUMBS UP SPOILED BY THE POTUS, HARD TO GIVE A PURE SCORE
THE ONE WOMAN ONE
This is the thumbs up your step-mum does when she finally convinces your dad to start charging you rent.
9/10
RED GUY
No visible thumbs up from this guy, but we have to assume that – in between having a visible reaction to shellfish, or whatever is going on with his big, ruddy face – he is popping one.
N/A
POPS MCKENZIE
This is a real “I just completed my year-long tour of every Burger King restaurant in the US” of a thumbs up. Look at the elbow action.
8/10
THAT LAST GUY ON THE END
This dude’s physically inept son is playing cub-level soccer and, despite his hatred for him, his clumsy son, his stupid useless son, those legs you gave him are trash, Lynette! Despite that, he is on the sidelines, weakly cheering him on, giving him the “go on, buddy!” thumbs up whenever the fuckin’ kid makes eye contact.
6/10
AND SO WE GET TO THE BIT WHERE WE SAY WHICH IS THE WEAKEST THUMBS UP
Oh, they all suck. But sadly the contest isn’t about that any more, because remember the dying man? Remember the man who died? Look at this:
Look at this little hand cry for help.
“Maybe… if I just… touch my tiny… baby… hand… on the President’s… shoulder… my heart won’t… explode… in my chest.” Bad luck, buddy. Your hand just became the most disappointing thumbs up in this photograph of disappointing thumbs up. And it’s not even a thumbs up. I hope you rest in peace.
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