Melania Really Wants You to Wear a "Cloth Face Covering"

Week four of being boarded up in our homes as a result of the covid-19 pandemic and Melania Trump has once again emerged to say some words that are barely helpful at all. You can watch her video announcement below, but I can also summarize her message in one sentence: Cover your face in public but don’t stop social distancing. She says it very slowly, but that’s basically all she says.

And yes, this is especially hilarious as her husband is currently refusing to wear a mask. Excuse me—cloth face covering.

Why, you might ask, does Trump not want to wear a cloth face covering of his own? It’s about the Presidential aesthetic, of course.

“I just don’t want to wear one myself, it’s a recommendation,” [Trump] told reporters last Friday. “Somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk, the great Resolute Desk, I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know, I don’t see it for myself.”

Doesn’t she look like a killer nurse? This photo gives me very Kathy Bates-in-Misery energy, only more clinical and with a little bit of fascism sprinkled in. Am I projecting? Should I restart American Horror Story: Asylum? Perhaps.

Also, just speaking as a social media manager, placing a multi-sentence block of white Times New Roman text over a regular photo is really…. basic? Or is it just tacky? Either way, it’s making me start to question whether Melania could have possibly made this graphic herself, instead of delegating the task to her staff. A deep dive into Melania’s Instagram by my college Ashley Reese has already established that the first lady is not the most social media adept (and may only own an iPhone 4), and as I can’t imagine that any person under the age of 35 would make a graphic this ugly and unhelpful (the text is SO tiny), it seems only logical to conclude that our robotic first lady created this image herself.

I, for one, am relieved to know that Melania is spending her time stuck inside wisely.