Ever since excerpts from Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House were published last week, there has been fire, fury and frenzy on Twitter.
On January 3, explosive bits from the book, touted as a tell-all account of US President Donald Trump’s time at the White House, appeared in various publications. The book has made several sensational claims, including the assertion that no one from Trump’s campaign, including the candidate himself, expected a victory and that Ivanka Trump had her eye set on taking over the American presidency from her father. Wolff said he gleaned this information from conversations with the president and his staff during his time as a White House reporter, a period during which he claims he had free access to the presidential estate.
In the days since, the panicked US administration has tried everything from discrediting the author to legal threats as damage control. All that the hectic activity achieved, however was to hasten the the release of the book – it came out on January 5 midnight instead of its planned January 9 launch – and ensure it sold out within hours.
Much of this drama played out on social media, with Trump posting a flurry of tweets almost daily, denying that Wolff had access to the White House and alternately calling the author a “liar”, a “phony” and a “loser”.
But with the book turning out to be huge success upon its launch, even though questions about Wolff’s credibility have been raised by numerous publications, the US President on Saturday morning put up a series of tweets defending his mental abilities. Reiterating that he is “like, really smart”, Trump pronounced himself a “very stable genius”.
For Twitter users, this was the crowning glory of an eventful week that had provided much fodder for social media hilarity. As expected, the jokes, memes and GIFs poured in, with several celebrities also joining in the fun.
Trump’s “stable genius” comment gave horses all over the world their moment of fame on Twitter and the equine animal was invoked innumerable times on the micro-blogging website.
Comments on Trump’s mental faculties aside, Wolff’s book has also inspired much humour on Twitter, with people imagining how his time at the White House would have transpired and weighing in on how Trump’s response to Fire and Fury... boosted interest in the publication.
Wolff’s work has also provided a creative outlet to Twitter users, who chipped in with their own editions and excerpts of the book. While user Happy Toast came up with a pop-up version of the book for easy readability, @pixelatedboat produced a fictitious extract from Fire and Fury that proved too realistic for comfort.
The satirical extract, which claimed that Trump’s staff had created a 24*7 “gorilla channel” where the president could watch the apes fighting all day, was mistaken for the real thing by so many users that @pixelboat changed his username to clarify that it was a joke.