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We haven’t heard much from or about our potential Republican First Lady, Melania Trump, so when Donald Trump’s wife set the stage at the Republican National Convention, we were all ears. Too bad the speech ended almost immediately in controversy. However, we all need to take a break from screaming “Plagiarism!” for a minute. Melania’s speech may have contained the most epic RickRoll in political history.
Much like a video game created in the early 2000s, it’s seems that Melania’s speech is filled with Easter eggs. Shortly after she delivered the speech, news sites and angry social media sleuths alike started claiming that several passages had been plagiarized from a speech Michelle Obama gave in 2008. It could be a case of similar thinking, but when you look at the passages side by side and remember that the Trumps probably have a fleet of professional speechwriters at their beck and call, then no, that’s probably not what happened at all. The similarities were first pointed out by journalist and interior designer Jarrett Hill on Twitter, and the claims quickly found social media traction. As of 10 o’clock this morning, over 10 hours after the similarities were first pointed out, the scathing hashtags #MelaniaSpeeches and #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes were still trending. But if the RickRoll claims are true, this speech just went from insulting to possibly the greatest and nerdiest insider takedown in political history.
The RickRoll was first reported by Vox. If you don’t know what RickRolling is, read up about it here. Ha! I got you! Basically, it’s an internet meme that involves tricking people into either watching or listening to the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Why? Because the internet is a weird playground. The most iconic lines from the meme are “Never gonna give you up / Never gonna let you down / Never gonna run around and desert you.” Keeping that in mind, let’s watch some of Melania’s speech, shall we?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIB6LI5AGvX/
Here’s the exact text if you want to double check what you just heard:
Two out of three! In an interview with CNN, Menalia Trump said that, though she did have a team of speech writers, she wrote it “ … with (as) little help as possible.” If that’s the case, then internet internet memes may be forcing their way into real life. We all need to be wary.
