Complaining about US women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe in a now deleted tweet, President Trump accidentally tagged a different user whose handle was similar to the midfielder’s and has now made that person an overnight social media star.
On Tuesday morning, Trump complained after the real Rapinoe vowed not to go to ‘the f*****g White House’ if her team wins the World Cup.
Furious about the snub, Trump wrote in a rambling post: ‘Women’s soccer player, @meganrapino, just stated that she is “not going to the F…ing White House if we win.” Other than the NBA, which now refuses to call owners, owners (please explain that I just Criminal Justice Reform passed, Black unemployment is at its lowest level…)
However, the account he tagged did not belong to the soccer star but instead a 21-year-old student.
Her name is not Megan Rapinoe or even Megan Rapino, as her handle would suggest, and she had not used the account for years before the president tweeted at her, she said.
The photograph in her bio is of retired French player, Laure Boulleau.
Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning mistakenly tagging @meganrapino instead of Megan Rapinoe
The Twitter user hit back in the star’s defense but was quickly inundated with followers and angry responses from Trump’s fans
Rather than shirk away from the avalanche of attention she received, she embraced it with a sense of humor and, by the end of the day, had even started trolling the president.
Choosing not to share her real name for fear of being targeted by the president’s fans, she told Yahoo Sports how she was walking out of a 7-Eleven in Pennsylvania when her phone started buzzing incessantly.
She opened it to see that Trump had tweeted her and her heart sank, she said, thinking to herself: ‘What have I done.’
She tweeted throughout the day, making light of the scenario and trying to get the real Megan Rapinoe to tweet her
Instinctively, she replied to the president in support of Rapinoe, writing: ‘And she was right to say so cry me a river plus this isn’t even her acc.’
Since then, the college student has been bombarded with abuse from Trump loyalists and has amassed more than 3,000 followers.
But she enjoyed the attention and seemed to take her notoriety, however brief, for what it was.
‘My replies are poppin off right now,’ said one tweet.
‘ngl (slang for not going to lie) thought it was a joke when I saw donald tweeted me but here we are (sic)’ said another.
Will the real Megan Rapinoe please stand up? The soccer star has not responded to the Twitter feed
She then excitedly joked about the president getting her past 1,000 followers and then used the opportunity to tweet the real Rapinoe and ask for her recognition.
‘Taking this as my chance to get @mPinoe to notice me I’m not ashamed,’ she wrote in one.
In a later post, she joked: ‘Mom come pick me up old men are attacking me’.
And to one of Trump’s fans who tweeted her telling her she made him sick, seemingly still under the impression she was the real soccer star, she replied: ‘You should see a doctor about that.’
After realizing his mistake, Trump deleted the original post, then sent a fresh tweet tagging the real Rapinoe.
His original victim seized on it, writing: ‘2nd times the charm.’
Throughout the day she changed her screen name name from a single ‘.’ to ‘not megan rapinoe’ to ‘maybe megan rapinoe’.