Pete Buttigieg’s husband shares tone deaf picture of presidential hopeful at Holocaust Memorial
Pete Buttigieg’s husband snapped a photo of the presidential hopeful at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin in 2017, and some folks aren’t happy. (Instagram)
A bizarre photograph of Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg at the Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was dug up by Twitter, and, well, they’re pretty taken aback.
Taken by his husband Chasten, the picture uploaded to his Instagram account shows the South Bend, Indiana, mayor in a short-sleeved shirt nestled between the concrete slabs.
The stelae are arranged in a grid pattern across a sloping field to memorialise the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
But the sombre tourist attraction has emerged as a crucial spot for selfies, to the chagrin of activists.
Pete Buttigieg receives chorus of criticism for 2017 photo of him at Holocaust memorial.
Back in April 1, 2019, the Pete and Chasten Buttigieg visited the site, with Chasten captioning the post: “This guy.”
While the post has remained under the radar during the presidential hopeful’s campaign, Twitter user Ben uncovered the post and shared it to his followers.
https://twitter.com/benkesslen/status/1196233122037280769
Tallying 14,000 likes in less than a day, the post became a lightning rod for criticism against Pete, a users dubbed him an “InstaGay” and almost everyone replied: “Yikes.”
“Maybe it’s just me, but I’d imagine the Holocaust Memorial isn’t the right instagram backdrop for fawning innuendo about your husband,” one user commented.
“Oh, problematic photos by InstaGays at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin are a whole sub-genre of InstaGay shenanigans,” observed Jeff.
Far too frequent Grindr profile pic in Europe I'm afraid https://t.co/Ea3WDeIzuk
— Brian (@spoonitoria) November 18, 2019
In 2013, a blog scanned the tiled torsos of Grindr to find users who featured selfies of themselves – at times shirtless – in the memorial.
Some users compared the snap to the ‘Yolocaust‘.
Coined by Israeli-German writer Shahak Shapira, the term is slapped onto social media users who take selfies in sites dedicated to reverence.
This is some #yolocaust shit. pic.twitter.com/tHSoL3RkKK
— Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (@idlebystander) November 18, 2019
As part of a project of the same name, Shapira hoovered away the background of a dozen selfies taken at the memorial. Swapping it for graphic photographs of the Holocaust.
Something which one Twitter user did for Pete:
There is an Israeli artist named Shahak Shapira who edits tourists photos in a series called “Yolocaust”
I decided to make an edition for Pete pic.twitter.com/4XxJbakv0A— Drew Soren (@sorendrew) November 18, 2019
‘At least he’s not licking the memorial.’
“At least it was Chasten with the weird caption,” one user flagged.
“The picture is serious enough to be respectful – he’s not, like, licking the memorial or something.”
“With a more serious caption it could have been a lot more impactful. Something about how he stands with the victims, survivors, and descendants of survivors of the Shoah and will do his best to make sure no more genocide ever happens again, he was so moved etc, could have worked.
Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg. (Getty)
“But Chas took Pete’s bad decision (glamour shot at a Holocaust memorial) and turned it into an AWFUL one (cutesy lovey-dovey Holocaust memorial glamour shot).”
But while Twitter users question the lawmaker, who, if elected, would become the first openly gay US president, Pete is powering through some recent polls.
In fact, Pete was rated the top choice for the Democratic nomination in poll of Iowa cactus voters.
