Story highlights
Tony Blair's Christmas card features the former British PM's unnatural grin
Twitter users were quick to mock the image
Copycat cards on the theme were also quick to emerge
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s attempt to spread the festive cheer turned into a turkey after social media users mocked his new Christmas card.
Blair issued his annual Christmas card on Monday. It features a photo of him, with a forced grimace on his face, standing next to his wife Cherie alongside the caption “Season’s Greetings.”
The unnatural-looking smile quickly became the source of online derision, with Twitter users quick to compare the image to a range of gurning icons, from Count Orlock from “Nosferatu” and “Friends’” Chandler Bing.
@carlmaxim noted that “the strange thing about Tony Blair’s Christmas card is how the teeth seem to follow you round the room.”
Other users decided to do their own version of the card.
Some took the opportunity for some – admittedly outdated – political satire. User @GeneralBoles superimposed Blair’s successor Gordon Brown’s face onto Blair’s and tweeted “Come on Tony, it’s my turn,” a reference to Brown waiting for Blair to step down as prime minister and repeatedly telling him, “It’s my turn now.”
Others took the culture route, with @Rowland72James superimposing the couple’s faces onto Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, while @garboy photoshopped their faces onto the notoriously unsmiling Grant Wood painting “American Gothic.”
When asked about the card, a spokesperson for Blair’s office told CNN: “We do not ‘officially’ release the card, cards are sent to their friends and colleagues, which doesn’t seem to me to be that unusual a process let alone one which merits such interest.”