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An old tweet about ‘favorite travel memories’ from Trump Hotels draws fresh mockery

'Tell us your favorite travel memory.'

 

Chris Tognotti

Internet Culture

Posted on Jan 29, 2017   Updated on May 25, 2021, 2:49 am CDT

It’s been a decidedly busy first week for the Donald Trump administration, in ways that have stirred up a firestorm of protest, controversy, confusion, and criticism. And now mockery.

Take a look at what’s happening over at the Trump Hotels official Twitter account. It’s nothing new for people to fish up years-old tweets from people and institutions freshly relevant in the news—White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer got a dose of that treatment when social media users discovered his peculiar, disparaging obsession with Dippin’ Dots.

That’s what seems to be happening now with a 5-year-old tweet from @TrumpHotels, authored long before literally anyone (with the exception of Adam Carolla, perhaps) had any idea that Trump would eventually ascend to the White House. Dated Oct. 11, 2011, it asks a simple question.

And beginning Saturday, surely spurred by the massive outcry over the executive order banning Syrian refugees and temporarily barring incoming travel from six other majority-Muslim nations, the replies began to flow in. What’s your favorite travel memory, Trump Hotels asks? Plenty of people had answers.


Suffice to say, some social media manager somewhere is probably sifting through the wreckage right now. It’s no surprise that so many of the replies have centered around the immigrant experience, whether firsthand or by way of parents and grandparents—this one, from Racked editor-at-large Aminatou Sow made the point particularly powerfully.

https://twitter.com/aminatou/status/825473535791493120

Obviously, nobody running a social media account for a hotel chain can see the future. But it’s safe to say that if we’d cracked time travel yet, this one would’ve been undone well before the words “Trump” and “president” were ever in the same sentence.

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*First Published: Jan 29, 2017, 10:12 am CST