Plaid Shirt Guy

Submission 24,123

Part of a series on Donald Trump. [View Related Entries]

About

Plaid Shirt Guy refers to the facial expressions of Tyler Linfesty, who while seated directly behind United States President Donald Trump at a support rally, made a series seemingly confused, skeptical and sarcastic facial expressions directed toward the president and the president's speech. Video of the rally of Linfesty's various expressions, as well as his forced exit from the camera's view, went viral, as people praised and joked about his reaction.

Origin

On September 6th, 2018, at a rally for President Trump in Billings, Montana, cameras at the event recorded then-high school student Tyler Linfesty making a series of skeptical facial reactions to the content President Trump's speech.^[1] Linfesty could be seen over Trump's right shoulder grimacing, raising his eyebrows and mouthing the word "what" as Trump spoke about the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. After nearly an hour of Linfesty contradicting and questioning Trump's speech with his reaction, a woman approached him and took his spot as Linfesty left the camera's view.

Spread

That day, Twitter ^[2] user @RanttMedia tweeted a video of the moment with the caption "At Trump’s Montana rally, some of his supporters seemed irritated. Some seemed unenthusiastic and even bored. Is this why multiple supporters were swapped out?" The tweet (shown below) received more than 13,000 retweets, 26,000 likes and 1.6 million views in four days.

The following day, September 7th, Twitter^[3] user @AmoneyResists tweeted a video of Linfesty mouthing "what?" The post (shown below) received more than 16,000 retweets, 54,000 like and 1.93 million views in three days.

Others shared their appreciation and enjoyment of Linfesty, whom the people referred to as "plaid shirt guy." On September 7th, recording artist Nancy Sinatra tweeted,^[4] "#plaidshirtguy is my new hero." The tweet (shown below, left) received more than 315 retweets and 2,600 likes in three days. Twitter^[5] user @erinkchapin tweeted, "I don't know who you are kid, but right now, you're my hero. #plaidshirtguy." Within three days, the tweet (shown below, center) received more than 1,300 retweets and 10,000 likes. Twitter^[6] user @mmpadellan tweeted, "Instead of focusing on "Extreme Vetting" at the borders, trumpers would kindly appreciate that they focus on keeping folks like #plaidshirtguy out of their rallies. His expressions invite too much truthiness into their trumpiness. I love this guy!" The tweet (shown below, right) received more than 1,800 retweets and 6,200 likes in three days.

On September 7th, Linfesty appeared on CNN. In an interview with CNN's Don Lemon, Linfesty explained his actual reaction to the campaign speech. Within three days of the video being posted to YouTube, the video (shown below) received more than 2 million views.

Several media outlets covered the popularity of Plaid Shirt Guy, including The Washington Post,^[7] The New York Times,^[8] Elite Daily,^[9] The Daily Dot ^[10] and more. On September 7th, Twitter^[11] published a Moments page based on reactions to the video.