#FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes

About

#FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes is a satirical hashtag used to falsely attribute famous quotes and popular song lyrics to Melania Trump, the wife of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in mocking her speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, which quickly came under intense media scrutiny and accusations of plagiarism due to its similarities to a speech given by Michelle Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Origin

On July 18th, 2016, Melania Trump delivered a speech in support of her husband’s candidacy for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Following the speech, many accused her of plagiarizing portions of Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech (shown below).

That evening, actor Jesse Williams launched the hashtag #FamousMelaniaTrump^[1] quotes, which mocked Trump by falsely attributing famous quotes and song lyrics to her (shown below).^[2]

Spread

That evening actress Anna Kendrick tweeted^[4] a quote uttered by actor Samuel Jackson in the 2006 thriller film Snakes on a Plane with the “#FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes” hashtag (shown below). On July 19th, the hashtag began trending on the microblogging site.

That morning, Twitter user @MaisAbusalah^[5] posted a troll quote-style image macro attributing “I am a proud, independent black woman” to Trump (shown below, left). Meanwhile, the official Huffington Post Twitter^[3] feed posted a similar image macro falsely attributing four famous quotes to Trump (shown below, right). In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the hashtag, including The Daily Dot,^[6] UpRoxx,^[7] People,^[8]CNN^[9] and USA Today.^[10]