Public service announcement:

Stop faking your Twitter and Instagram pictures. It never works out well.

Earlier this week, an influencer was outed for pretending to hike and, as is to be expected, politicians are also trying their luck at duping the public.

Right-leaning French MP Éric Woerth decided to play with the angle of a picture a little bit to make it look like his climb up the Aiguille d’Argentiere in the Alps was a lot riskier than it was. He then posted it on Twitter.

Here’s his tweet:

pic.twitter.com/rCfikb5F9Z

— Eric Woerth (@ericwoerth) August 12, 2019

He is claiming that the picture is totally real and is “astonished” that people are “mocking him on social media”, reports The Guardian.

Really, friend? Have you met the internet?

Also, people online are making some pretty compelling arguments:

One tweeter discovered two people in the background who appeared to be walking upright at a 90 degree angle from the snow covered mountain.

Let’s take a closer look at that one:

Definitely people. Definitely walking upright on the “slope”.

Someone else pointed out that the zipper on his jacket was defying gravity:

Woerth has clearly decided not to take the response to his tweet lying down (or on all fours as seen above), but so far his attempts to fight back have backfired.

When Woerth challenged Twitter users to contact the mountain guide who had taken the photo, the social network exploded. “I’m the glacier and I can confirm that Mr Woerth climbed me,” wrote one.

Another added: “I’m the green cord and I helped with this climb…”

Speaking of the green cord. That too is defying gravity in the above picture.

Naturally, the memes were soon to follow:

pic.twitter.com/h4E7nnKoiU

— Gaëtan Duchateau (@gaetan) August 12, 2019

Mountain guide Jean-Franck Charlet insisted the photograph is real.

“I am the guide who accompanied Eric Woerth,” he wrote on Twitter. “This photo is 100% real, even if the slope at 45 degrees appears a little steeper than it is in reality. This slope is not a simple one … it’s one that has been the site of numerous accidents in the past.”

…“I am astonished that a simple photograph has sparked so many critical and ironic comments from internet users and climbers, comments widely taken up by our great national media … who have simply picked this up easily and without any professionalism made no effort to contact the person who took the photo and by doing so establish the truth,” Charlet said.

Seriously, France? Why is everyone so confused about how social media works?

I’ll leave you, dear reader, to make up your own mind about the mountain.

[source:guardian]