A photo editor went viral on Instagram and then Twitter (formerly X) with a tanner theory about Donald Trump.
The viral social media theory explains how former President Trump’s use of tanning lotion appears to intensify when he is “stressed,” especially in the days leading up to the election.
Photo editor Emily Keegin first shared the theory with her 281,000 Instagram followers in a multi-part carousel showing images as proof that after Trump started wearing makeup on The Apprentice, his use continued and then increased.
A user screenshots with the message: “A photographer I follow on Instagram has discovered that his use of tanning lotion increases when he’s stressed/close to an election and it’s tied to his days in the heyday of reality TV, and it’s fascinating.”
The concept quickly went viral, receiving 758 responses and 16,000 retweets.
A photo editor went viral on Instagram and then Twitter (formerly X) with a tanning lotion theory about Donald Trump
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump dances as he leaves a campaign rally in North Carolina on October 30, 2024.
“His inconsistency is the most interesting thing to me,” one X user shared about Trump, who was much lighter in tone in August 2024, as seen above.
“The most interesting thing to me is its inconsistency,” the X user shared.
In the original Instagram theory, Emily explained that until recently she thought Trump’s “makeup choices were simply made for a TV audience.”
“We* need to talk about bronzer,” Emily wrote on Instagram, before explaining that she’s noticed that her skin tone “tends to fluctuate wildly depending on the lighting and the photographer’s color palette.”
The photo editor shared images from when he took office in 2017 and said he was “significantly less orange” at the time.
“The more stressed… the more makeup,” he explained, showing photos of him in court with a darker skin tone.
Emily then shared a photo of Trump, 78, after his debate with Biden, 81, where he didn’t look bronze at all.
However, she shared a photo from Oct. 30, where her tanner looked darker than ever, as well as one from her rally at Madison Square Garden.
“It’s usually darker in October,” Emily explained, which coincides with her presidential campaign.
Trump’s skin apparently gets tanner the closer he gets to Election Day
Trump pauses during a campaign rally on October 31, 2024 in Nevada while looking quite tanned.
With less than a week until Election Day, Trump is campaigning for re-election in the battleground states of North Carolina and Wisconsin.
He compared it to “eyebrow blindness,” a trend on TikTok in which people didn’t realize their eyebrows didn’t look right at the time, likening it to a dysphoric state.
The photography expert also noted that the presidential candidate appeared to start using tanning lotion in January 2004, when he first began appearing on The Apprentice.
The businessman would have gotten used to wearing makeup on reality shows, and he wore the look to his subsequent public appearances.
Former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson once claimed she stopped wearing masks because they stained her tanning lotion.
Emily and Cassidy aren’t the only ones who have commented on Trump’s evolving complexion, which has become an ongoing debate as people wonder whether he spray tans or uses a tanning bed.
Former aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman even claimed she had a tanning bed set up in the White House residence, although a source later denied those claims to DailyMail.com.
After the Republican candidate appeared in an orange vest at his rally in Wisconsin, social media users noted that he continued to “get more orange” throughout his presidential campaign.
Some even compare it to the Oompa-Loompas from the film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
‘Trump evolves into his final neon orange form!’ one person wrote on social media at the time.