When Samuel Themer was simply “sitting on the train, existing” on his way to work a few weeks ago, he had no idea his perfectly contoured face would soon be plastered on newsfeeds across the world.
The drag performer’s 15-minutes of fame began on Wednesday when a far-right Twitter user shared a photo of him on the New York subway sitting alongside an unnamed commuter, who happened to be wearing a niqab.
The tweet was captioned: “This is the future that liberals want.”
The user meant it pejoratively but, um, noone else really saw it that way.
They’re responses ranged from the non-plussed…
…to the enthused…
…to the just straight-up delighted, actually.
In practically no time at all, a meme was born as a beautifully diverse vision of a unicorn-soaked future packed with power rangers and puppies began to spread in only the way a viral internet gag can.
What many failed to realise was, in fact, the photo had been repurposed once before.
It was originally taken Boubah Barry, a Guinean immigrant, who posted it on his Instagram account as a celebration of tolerance.
“This is how freedom looks,” he wrote beneath it.
As for Themer, while it never occurred to him his daily commute might be a political act, he seemed pretty chuffed to be a champion of diversity.
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