Have you seen a photo of the MyPillow CEO and major Trump supporter? Mike Lindell Does he seem distant, with dark circles under his eyes? It went viral on social media and was viewed millions of times. But it’s not real. The photo may look strangely realistic, but it has been significantly altered.
“Meeting Mike Lindell at the Waukesha Trump Rally must have been like shaking hands with the Apostle Paul before Christ took the stage at the Sermon on the Hill,” an X account credited to someone named Gary Peterson became tweeted.
Gary Peterson, who goes by the pseudonym @GaryPetersonUSA, appears to have been the first to post the photoshopped image. But it’s an account that frequently posts altered images, often in a way that makes it difficult to distinguish them from an authentic photo.
The tweet alone has over 6.3 million views and contains no note from Community Notes, the name for X’s crowdsourced fact-checking. But the image has spread far and wideJumping to different social media services like Facebook And Blue skyas is often the case with these things when they go viral.
Where does the picture actually come from? It appears the image was originally posted to X from Waukesha, Wisconsin The Devil’s Advocate Radio on May 1st and shows Lindell in front of one of Donald Trump’s neo-fascist rallies.
As you can see, Lindell is not in the picture with disheveled hair and thick, dark circles under her eyes. Lindell also has a more normal smile as opposed to the bizarre look in the altered picture.
Attentive viewers may have noticed something strange about the photoshopped image. If you zoom in over Lindell’s left shoulder, you can see what appears to be a roaring bear. It’s not clear why the people who created this image included the bear, but it’s not in the original image.
This is far from the first time people have made fun of Mike Lindell with fake pictures. Back in February, a video was released that allegedly showed Lindell getting “hammered” while driving make the rounds. In reality, the video used a green screen technique to make it appear as if the car was moving. In the original video posted by Lindell, the car was actually parked.
Apparently, we can expect many more politically themed fakes as we get closer to the US presidential election in November. But most major media outlets seem to be heavily focused on generative AI and the ways it could influence people and swing voters. But this new fake involving Lindell is a great reminder that old-fashioned Photoshopping is still around. You don’t need fancy AI to create a convincing (if admittedly confusing) fake image.