Pictures Of Guy Fieri Meeting With Donald Trump Dividing Social Media
Two of the most famous haircuts in America met at a UFC event last weekend when Donald Trump and Guy Fieri were photographed, appearing to exchange pleasantries.
The photograph proved an unexpected lightning rod of social media discourse, dividing people into those who thought the photographs were very bad, those who felt they were very good, and those who thought they were really not worth having an opinion over.
In the former camp were some prominent left-leaning voices on social media, such as White Stripes guitarist Jack White, who included the Trump-Fieri picture in an Instagram post condemning the Mayor of Flavortown alongside Mark Wahlberg, Joe Rogan and Mel Gibson as "disgusting" people who are working to "normalize" Trump.
The former President and current leading Republican candidate is currently awaiting criminal trial in two separate cases, one for allegedly paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels and another for improperly holding and mishandling documents related to national security.
Fieri has been largely apolitical in his career, as AV Club writer (and Know Your Meme alum) Matt Schimkowitz wrote in 2021 at a time when Fieri was generating a wholesome reputation thanks to tens of millions of dollars he'd raised for restaurant relief.
The Trump and Fieri photos led some Trump fans to celebrate that Fieri has supposedly "come out" on their side and laughed at liberals who wanted to "cancel" the chef for fraternizing with Trump. Some left-leaning users countered by saying the other side very famously attempted to "cancel" Bud Light for doing a single sponsored Instagram post with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Several did not see the photos as a big deal, including people who never expected Fieri to hold left-wing politics in the first place and those who thought a celebrity apparently shaking the hand of Trump was nothing to get incensed over one way or the other.
At least one person saw the move as politically savvy on Fieri's part, arguing that the Mayor of Flavortown was merely doing his due diligence to remain connected with other influential heads of state.