Friday, May 26, 2017

Overseas magazines trash President Trump

As President Trump tries to settle into the Oval Office, he continues to get blasted on magazine covers, especially overseas.
But even foreign magazine covers about Trump have settled down a bit. (No more Trump in the cross hairs or cutting off the head of Lady Liberty.) They’re still depicting him as a baby and a buffoon though.
What follows are the latest magazine covers featuring Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.

Spain’s Tapas magazine made artwork of Trump using baloney and bananas for its May issue.


Le Nouvel Observateur (France) pictured a blue-faced Trump with the cover line “Trump Wants To Destroy Europe?”


The Nikkei Asian Review (Japan) showed Trump as Uncle Sam with the caption “I don’t want you.” The subhead was: “Trump’s anti-immigrant message hits home for Asians.”


The May 26 issue of British news magazine The Week was headlined “Trump in crisis.” Artwork depicted Trump looking at a portrait of President Nixon with the subhead “The ‘Watergate-size’ scandals engulfing the presidency.”


Back in the U.S., Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon, illustrated Trump as a crying baby for its cover story titled “Two Congressmen and a Baby.”


The May 28 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek carried a tiny head shot of Trump with the cover line “If America were a company … Would you keep this CEO?”


Crain’s InvestmentNews used a photo of Trump with a bunch of tweets from Twitter about his tax plan.


The May 21 issue of the Washington Post Magazine juxtaposed photos of JFK on black-and-white television with Trump on a smartphone. It compared the two presidents as communicators using new media.

Previous articles about Trump magazine covers: 

The best Donald Trump magazine covers of the 2016 election (Oct. 16, 2016)

Media reaction to Trump’s election based on magazine covers (Nov. 20, 2016)

Magazines go over the top with President Trump covers (Feb. 25, 2017)

Trump magazine covers update: Three months on the job (April 22, 2017)

Friday, May 19, 2017

Lying clickbait: Photoshop fails

Clickbait promoters use lots of dirty tricks to get people to click on sponsored articles. They’ll use photos that aren’t related to the articles. They’ll try to pass off movie stills as historical photos. And they’ll present Photoshopped images as though they were the real deal.
What follows are some examples of crazy Photoshopped images that have appeared with lying clickbait articles.

A recent Revcontent article titled “He never mentions his son – Here is why” used a photo of rapper Snoop Dogg alongside a photo of man who looks like he’s from “The Island of Dr. Moreau.”
With a little detective work, it turns out that the photo is an altered picture of singer-songwriter Allen Makere from the series “Faces of New York” by Simon Hoegsberg. Below are unaltered photos of Makere, who is not Snoop’s son.





Clickbait promoters have a fascination with large snakes, especially ginormous Photoshopped creatures. Here are two recent examples.
Revcontent ran an article titled “Final photos taken seconds before tragedy struck” with a picture of a woman being stalked by a giant black snake. But guess what? It’s completely fake. The woman is an attractive lady who catches small snakes in rice fields in Cambodia in a YouTube video by Reaksa Daily.
Reaksa Daily has a bunch of videos that use badly Photoshopped still images to promote their videos. This is but one.




A Taboola video titled “Why you never play with wild animals in Australia” includes a Photoshopped picture of a young boy and a monstrously large snake. Once again … fake news! Check out the original photo and the Photoshopped version below.




Thursday, May 18, 2017

Lying clickbait: Crazy celebrity transformations, geography fails, porn fantasies

For a few weeks, it seemed like lying clickbait had crawled back under the rock from which it came. I didn’t see many examples of it in my web surfing. But then the use of deceptive pictures with clickbait articles came roaring back.
Here are some of the latest examples.

I’ve noted previously that dishonest clickbait creators will pair a photo of a celebrity with the mugshot of a hideous criminal or drug addict and imply the two are the same person or are related.
Revcontent recently ran a sponsored article titled “‘Cosby Show’ star looks hideous today” that paired a photo of child star Keshia Knight Pulliam with the mugshot of some unidentified suspect who is not Knight Pulliam.




Revcontent posted an article titled “Once a star, now totally broke” that paired an image of actress Jasmine Guy with a picture of a Bronx heroin addict named J Lo by Chris Arnade.




A Revcontent article titled “30 hot celebrities who married ugly spouses” paired a photo of actor Emilio Estevez with an unattractive mystery woman. Estevez was previously married to singer-choreographer Paula Abdul and had children with model Carey Salley.





Clickbait creators must be pretty stupid when it comes to geography.
A Taboola article titled “Untold history of the Korean War looks beyond what is known” used a photo of actress Raquel Welch visiting U.S. troops in Vietnam in 1968.



A Revcontent article titled “30 secrets North Korea doesn’t want anyone to know” used a still from the South Korean period movie “The Treacherous” (2015).



Clickbait creators also don’t know the difference between a dangerous animal and an endangered animal.
A Taboola article titled “30 most dangerous species found on the planet” used a photo of a hooded seal. The conservation status of the hooded seal is listed as “vulnerable.”



Clickbait creators love to pass off modern photos as historical. They’ll often convert color photos to black and white or sepia tone for this purpose.
A recent Taboola sponsored link titled “15 most beautiful historical photos ever captured” used a photo of model Billie Darling taken by photographer Mark Cafiero in 2006.



Clickbait purveyors also like to misrepresent what photos depict.
A Taboola article titled “23 unreal photos taken before tragic moments” used a photo of a woman who looks like she’s falling down. The photo’s subject, Australian pro surfer Ellie-Jean Coffey, is actually riding a skateboard and just leaning into a turn.



And finally a Yahoo-sponsored clickbait article titled “What you thought teachers do during class is true” used a provocative photo of a curvaceous woman with a low cut dress talking to a young man. The photo is actually from a porn movie by Naughty America, based on my reverse image search.
I almost never click on these articles, but did in this case to see if it had any references to teachers having sex with students. It did not.



Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The Girls of Clickbait

If Playboy magazine did a Girls of Clickbait pictorial, like they used to do for the Girls of the Big 10 and other college sports conferences, it would include women like Allison Stokke, Paige Spiranac, Claire Abbott and Anastasia Kvitko. Pictures of all of these ladies have been used repeatedly to promote clickbait articles.
Here are some recent examples featuring pole-vaulter and fitness model Allison Stokke and golfer Paige Spiranac.



Here are two more women likely to become clickbait favorites: Russian contortionist Julia Guenthel, aka Zlata, and busty model and personal trainer Denise Milani.



For more information on Zlata, check out articles by the Daily Mail, Cosmopolitan and Russian Personalities, as well as her website.



For more details on Denise Milani, visit her Facebook and Instagram pages.