Saturday, 20 June 2026
Saturday, 20 June 2026
People tell lies. People tell white lies. And then there are people whose claims turn out to be so ambitious that social media turn on their engines to teach the person a lesson.
Donald Trump may have claimed that the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni was "begging" him for a picture at the G7 Summit, but Internet users took a look at some of the footage and pictures and got confused: “Are we looking at the same video where Trump thought that Meloni was begging him for a picture?”
Within hours, clips and screenshots from the summit began circulating online, edited and captioned with trademark troll panache.
In one video, Meloni was seen having an intense conversation with Trump, but not one where it looks like she is asking for a “Can I please have a picture”. Rather, she looks at the President of the United States with an intense stare usually reserved for students who have forgotten their homework for the fourth consecutive day.
In another, she looks less like someone requesting a selfie and more like an Italian mother who has just discovered that her child has done something extremely dumb.
"Meloni to Trump: How dare you tell a lie," declared one viral post. To be fair, that’s the best summary of what the Italian PM said in response to Trump’s claim.
Another close-up of Meloni’s facial expression in view of Trump’s claim would have made him cower in fear (only if!); however, it allowed viewers to decide which team they were on, and the verdict from social media was swift and unanimous.
Nobody saw a woman begging for a photograph.
They saw the ‘look’. The look mothers give after catching you sneaking at your phone at 2am, the one teachers give before announcing a surprise test.
Some imagined her demanding explanations, while some went one step ahead and said, “No, no, that expression is not for the false claims but for Modi”
"You're plotting against my Modu?"
One widely shared meme imagined Meloni delivering the diplomatic equivalent of a parent-teacher meeting ultimatum: "Straighten up, or I'll set you straight." (Well, hello Bollywood, here’s your next blockbuster script)
The bottom line? The G7 Summit will be remembered as the tales of a man being told off by the entire Internet after he claimed someone begged for a photograph with him.
