X Network users further reminded that penguins from the Southern Hemisphere were sanctioned by Trump last spring when he handed out tariff surcharges to countries around the world, including Heard Island and the MacDonald Islands, on which he imposed a 10 percent tariff. What about the fact that basically only penguins live on uninhabited, volcanic islands.
The White House called the AI creation “Embrace (hug) the penguin.”
People have also noticed that the penguin leaves footprints as big as the American president. Another user was struck by the fact that the American flag is not carried by Trump, but by a penguin. As if to indicate what Trump thinks about democracy. (the English idiom “for the birds” means useless, useless, useless).
Last but not least, the fact that the penguin, as a very balanced genius (as Trump describes himself), leads the American president into the Antarctic wilderness without any food, supplies or shelter is slightly surprising.
Danish MP Rasmus Jarlov commented on the White House’s move: “The message from the White House is clear: Trump belongs to Greenland like penguins.”
The White House thus rode on the current trend from social networks such as TikTok or Instagram “Nihilistic Penguin”, where people share a video from German filmmaker Werner Herzog’s documentary Meeting at the End of the World from 2007. This is also evidenced by the fact that three hours later the White House reposted a video from the account of the Ministry of Internal Security, which is directly cut from Herzog’s documentary. Captioned “Americans have always known ‘why'”.
The video shows an apparently disoriented ringed penguin (in Antarctica) who has left his colony and is walking quite confidently towards the mountain, the hinterland and most likely certain death. The internet took notice of the “nihilistic penguin” sometime in 2010, and since then it slowly spread until the trend basically exploded on social media earlier this year.
