--- title: John Kelly Trump UN Speech Meme Starts Photoshop Battle description: A photo of John Kelly's reaction to President Donald Trump's first UN speech has gone viral enough to launch an endless Photoshop battle. canonical: https://time.com/4949822/john-kelly-photoshop-battle/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-20T16:20:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:47:25.012Z og:title: John Kelly's Reaction to Trump's Speech Is a Photoshop Battle og:description: People have taken the viral photo and ran with it pretty much everywhere og:url: https://time.com/4949822/john-kelly-photoshop-battle/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54f10bd176ce3d40/6988de7f97cdff881a6b281c/ap_17262538364916.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3097 og:image:height: 1742 og:image:alt: John Kelly, Melania Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John Kelly's Reaction to Trump's Speech Is a Photoshop Battle twitter:description: People have taken the viral photo and ran with it pretty much everywhere twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54f10bd176ce3d40/6988de7f97cdff881a6b281c/ap_17262538364916.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Of Course John Kelly's Reaction to Trump's U.N. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Sep 20, 2017 4:20 PM UTC  White House Chief of Staff John Kelly during President Donald Trump's speech at the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Sept. 19, 2017. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly during President Donald Trump's speech at the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Sept. 19, 2017. Mary Altaffer—AP by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Sep 20, 2017 4:20 PM UTC You can’t act naturally when the world’s eyes are on you without [becoming a meme](http://time.com/4949263/john-kelly-donald-trump-un-speech/). A photo of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly at [President Donald Trump’s United Nations address](http://time.com/4949338/donald-trump-north-korea-un/) – where Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, but argued that the world’s nations could prevent war by working together — has become the subject of a good old Internet [Photoshop battle](http://time.com/4841379/emmanuel-macrons-photoshop-battle/). Captured by the Associated Press’s Mary Altaffer, the in-the-moment snapshot of Kelly appearing to “facepalm” during the President’s first address at the U.N. General Assembly in New York predictably went viral. The human moment was sufficiently interesting to people online on its own, but that doesn’t mean that the doctored images aren’t rolling in after Reddit user “a\_\_witty\_\_username” shared it to the Photoshop Battle board. People have already edited the image into various distressing environments to joke about frustrating situations like a kid’s birthday party and tiresome “guy talk.” Unsurprisingly, the web favorite – a [_Star Trek_](https://giphy.com/gifs/star-trek-frustrated-facepalm-6OWIl75ibpuFO) facepalm moment – was in heavy rotation. See some of the edited takes below. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4949822/john-kelly-photoshop-battle/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4949822/john-kelly-photoshop-battle/"},"headline":"Of Course John Kelly's Reaction to Trump's U.N. 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