Kyle Rittenhouse Stare / Book Cover Portrait

Submission 1,288

Part of a series on Exploitables. [View Related Entries]

About

Kyle Rittenhouse Stare or Kyle Rittenhouse's Book Cover Portrait is a black-and-white photograph of Kyle Rittenhouse used for the cover of his book Acquitted. In May 2024, the photo became the subject of memes including photoshops and image macros mocking Rittenhouse after he told an indigenous American on X / Twitter to leave America.

Origin

On February 6th, 2024, X^[1] user @Taino1491, a Native American, posted a photo of himself and two children raising their middle fingers to Mount Rushmore, captioned, "Fuck the USA… ITS ALL STOLEN LAND," garnering over 169,000 likes in three months. On May 20th, Kyle Rittenhouse quote-reposted the post on his X^[2] account @ThisIsKyleR, writing, "Then leave," garnering over 129,000 likes in two days (shown below, left).

On May 21st, X^[3] user @EDWARDNEWP0RT quote-reposted Rittenhouse with a photograph of his own face, taken from the cover of his book Acquitted and used as his profile picture, the intention seemingly being to make fun of his appearance, garnering over 33,000 likes in a day (shown below, right). The post inspired several comments joking about the photo, with X^[4] user @tippity writing that day, "when you get so high you start getting scared," garnering over 2,000 likes in a day.

Spread

The photo continued to inspire memes on X over the following days. On May 21st, 2024, X^[5] user @HudsonvilleToon posted a photoshop making the photo resemble Mr. House from Fallout, garnering over 350 likes in a day (shown below).

On the same day, X^[6] user @erallover posted the photo with the caption, "Do you like the way I flick my tongue or nah?" garnering over 10,000 likes in a day (shown below, left). X^[7] user @PresidentToguro posted an image macro using lyrics from Drake's song "Nonstop" over the image, garnering over 1,900 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Later that day, X^[8] user @MarioEmblem_2 posted the photo, writing, "L4d2 survivor portraits," comparing the image to the survivor portraits from the video game Left 4 Dead 2, garnering over 20,000 likes in a day (shown below. left). X^[9] user @Cheggstein commented an edit of the photo in the style of a survivor portrait that day, garnering over 700 likes in a day (shown below, right).