Kellyanne Conway's Oval Office Couch Photo

Submission 36,646

Part of a series on Kellyanne Conway. [View Related Entries]

About

Kellyanne Conway's Oval Office Couch Photo refers to a photograph of Donald Trump's adviser Kellyanne Conway seated on a couch in the oval office on top of her legs. After the photo began circulating online in late February 2017, many expressed outrage toward Conway for placing her feet on the couch.

Origin

On February 27th, 2017, Getty Images^[1] photographer Brendan Smialowski photographed Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway checking her phone while seated on top of her legs on a couch after snapping a photograph of President Trump with leaders of historically black universities (shown below).

Spread

That day, the photograph began circulating on Twitter, with many accusing Conway of being disrespectful for putting her feet on the couch and checking her phone (shown below).

That evening, Redditor ahatzz11 submitted the photo to the /r/trashy^[2] subreddit, where it received upwards of 36,900 votes (70% upvoted) and 2,800 comments. The following day, Redditor whatshisuserface invited viewers to photoshop the image in a post on /r/photoshopbattles,^[6] which gathered more than 5,600 votes (86% upvoted) and 340 comments within six hours. Many of the comments contained digitally edited versions of the photo, placing a cutout of Conway in a variety of humorous contexts (shown below).

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to the photo, including Time,^[3] The Washington Post^[4] and The Huffington Post.^[5] Meanwhile, Washington Post^[7] staff writer Chris Cillizza wrote an op-ed characterizing the controversy as "incredibly dumb," noting that Conway was perched on the couch to get into position to take a photograph.