John Fetterman Body Doubles / This Is Not John Fetterman

Submission 7,169

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About

John Fetterman Body Doubles, also known as John Fetterman Clones, is a conspiracy theory that suggests United States Senator John Fetterman died during his hospitalization back in February 2023 and was replaced with a body double who was possibly also replaced with a clone in September 2023. As the theory spread online in 2023, it resulted in a series of memes using the catchphrase This Is Not John Fetterman trending on X (Twitter) in mid-September 2023 that drew humorous comparisons to famous people and characters that looked similar to the senator.

Origin

During February 2023, U.S. Senator John Fetterman went to the hospital on two separate occasions, with his extended stay starting on February 16th raising eyebrows among some online. After two weeks, Fetterman was said to be recovering and was released, causing a wave of conspiracy theorists to declare that the extended time in the hospital was meant to find a body double.^[9]

On February 26th, 2023, X user @DrewSav^[1] posted one of the earliest mentions of the body double conspiracy in a tweet that joked for the next six years (the length of Fetterman's Senate term) people would be claiming that it's a body double in place of Fetterman (shown below).

The rumors swirling around Fetterman being a body double continued to grow until Fetterman himself addressed them two months later. On April 18th, 2023, Senator Fetterman posted from his verified X^[2] account with a video in which he says that he is back and feeling great after his hospital stays.

He then dives into the talk about the body double conspiracy, saying that it was ridiculous before the camera cuts to him walking into the room wearing a different oversized hoodie and talking to himself as if he truly had a body double. The video, which also features the song "Just The Two of Us," reached over 5.6 million views and 50,000 likes in four months (shown below).

Spread

On September 12th, 2023, John Fetterman was seen reacting to Republican House speaker McCarthy impeaching President Joe Biden, with the video posted to X by the user @lizbrownkaiser^[3] being seen over 5.3 million times in one week (shown below).

.@SenFettermanPA reacts to Speaker McCarthy moving forward with a House impeachment inquiry into POTUS…(Just watch) pic.twitter.com/jg3aeyDW7F

— Liz Brown-Kaiser (@lizbrownkaiser) September 12, 2023

Due to the way the camera angle was, as well as the low quality of it, Fetterman's prominent arm tattoos were not visible for several parts of the video, causing screenshots to be taken and reposted as another part of the conspiracy emerged online at the time.

For example, on September 15th, 2023, X user @RedWingGrips^[4] uploaded a picture of Fetterman during his campaign (the real one) with arrows pointing to his arm tattoos, versus two screenshots from the prior video of Fetterman (the supposed clone) reacting to speaker McCarthy, captioning that they forgot to add the tattoos to the clone (shown below).

This Is Not John Fetterman Memes

The conspiracy theory quickly generated a counter-meme in September 2023 as it spread, with people purposely posting photos of famous actors or pop culture references and claiming that they are not John Fetterman to contrast against the conspiracy posting of body doubles.

On September 19th, 2023, X user @ParkerMolloy^[5] uploaded a photo of John Fetterman next to a photo of Walter White while captioning it "This is not John Fetterman" and earning over 45,000 views in one day (shown below, left). That same day, X user @nycsouthpaw^[6] posted another example of the meme featuring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, receiving nearly 1,000 likes and 100 retweets in roughly 24 hours (shown below, right).

Also on September 19th, X user @Eve6^[7] posted a variant comparing Fetterman and Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins, receiving over 2,200 likes and 100 retweets in 23 hours (seen below, left). Shortly after, X user @RTodKelly^[8] shared another example of the meme using an image of Mr. Potato Head from Toy Story, receiving roughly 40 likes in a similar timeframe (seen below, right).