The internet is not a kind place, and I typically have sympathy for those who find themselves on the receiving end of its nastiness. I have no sympathy at all, however, for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), the Florida man serially accused of sexual misconduct, who found himself the center of attention on Wednesday during night three of the Republican National Convention. The content of Gaetz's speech, in which he basically jerked it to how big and strong former President Trump is (in Gaetz's own words: "Donald Trump is unstoppable!"), was immaterial. All anyone could talk about was his face, and how... odd it looked, even just compared to the day before: Matt Gaetz yesterday vs. Matt Gaetz today #RNCConvention pic.twitter.com/qWN6CPifsq — PatriotTakes ???????? (@patriottakes) July 18, 2024 Many are saying Gaetz got a botched botox job, which… can be considered gender-affirming care—something Gaetz has frequently railed and legislated against. I try not to speculate and make judgments about people's bodily or aesthetic decisions (not publicly, at least!), but Gaetz is, err, arguably a special case—this is a man who very publicly, grossly body-shamed a teenage feminist activist not two years ago, saying at a rally, "The women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions ... Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb." (That teen girl went on to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for abortion funds off Gaetz's comments.) Given that history, no one really hesitated to speak just as candidly about the Wednesday night jump scare that was Gaetz's face—some even thanked him for saving them "thousands of dollars" by convincing them not to get botox. "People keep texting us the Matt Gaetz photo to ask my dermatologist husband's opinion and he just looked at it and said 'oh no. Several mistakes were made here,'" one user tweeted. Here's what other people thought: Why does Matt Gaetz look like Stevie Griffin that time he got plastic surgery pic.twitter.com/1O2ahODrIz — Ryan Aguirre (@aguirreryan) July 18, 2024 you know the "back alley" that republicans want you to get your abortions in? that's where matt gaetz got his botox done pic.twitter.com/3ahTU0MO4K — manny (@mannyfidel) July 18, 2024 Matt Gaetz got gender affirming care https://t.co/Hcr6qMWDc2 — The Serfs (@theserfstv) July 18, 2024 in my head his derm is pro-choice and did this on purpose https://t.co/cIwLJW5VyC — Liz Plank (SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK) (@feministabulous) July 18, 2024 matt gaetz looks like the Mario 64 title screen when you pull all the facial features back as far as you can pic.twitter.com/HiWMO57deZ — kate bush's husband (@airbagged) July 18, 2024 Matt Gaetz looks like the second image on an Animorphs cover. pic.twitter.com/hnJFCvWetu — Johnny McNulty (parody of former self) (@JohnnyMcNulty) July 18, 2024 OK, here's what I think happened. Gaetz saw his primetime RNC speech as the perfect outlet to hard-launch his new face. The man is, after all, nothing if not a big, now-blotchy-faced attention whore—hence, his convention day two behavior, which saw him heckling and harassing his arch nemesis Kevin McCarthy only to flee the scene with his tail between his legs when a bystander called him an "asshole." Sadly, because Gaetz's (possibly) pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ dermatologist seems to hate him, that hard launch was not just a flop, but Twitter's main character of the evening (derogatory). All there's left for Gaetz to do, it seems, is take a page from Trump's comically large ear bandage and consider putting one over his entire face.
