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MAGA-influencer Riley Gaines being told/paid by Patriot Mobile handlers what her "sincerely held" beliefs are in leaked video
by /u/mgbgtv8 | 116 comments | 2026-06-12T21:17:34+00:00 Central
Comments
| /u/KingSwank Why do they all get plastic surgery to look like the masks from the Purge? |
| /u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS Mar-A-Lago Face is a phenomenon that needs to be studied academically. |
| /u/Rulligan It has a Wikipedia page and it uses Hegsgeth as an example |
| /u/CletusCanuck You're not joking, omg. Even the Google summary is low-key scathing. The "Mar-a-Lago face" is a viral term for a distinct cosmetic and beauty trend associated with the Trump-aligned political circle. It features hyper-sculpted aesthetics-like pillowy lips, frozen foreheads from Botox, high and prominent cheekbones from fillers, and heavy TV makeup. It serves as a conspicuous status symbol, signaling wealth and loyalty to conservative gender roles. Characteristics of the Aesthetic The look is generally achieved through a combination of heavy makeup styling and cosmetic enhancements. Key traits include: Facial Enhancements: Noticeable use of injectables like Botox and volume fillers to create a tight jawline, frozen brow, and "bee-sting" plump lips. Contrasting Makeup: Heavy use of spray tans, dark smoky eyes, fake eyelashes, and stark contouring or highlighter. Bright White Teeth: Very bright, perfectly straight cosmetic dental work is frequently incorporated into the look. The Cultural Context The aesthetic is commonly linked to high-profile MAGA movement figures and TV hosts. Sociological and beauty analyses describe it not merely as a trend, but as an expression of political alignment and group belonging. It requires a massive investment of time and money, functioning as a visual marker of privilege and adherence to a specific, demanding style of femininity. Professional Perspectives Plastic surgeons and dermatologists have noted an uptick in requests for the aesthetic, though it has generated mixed reviews among the public. While some patients favor the ultra-polished, upward-pulled look, professionals also warn of the risks of overfilling, which can limit natural facial expressions and create an "uncanny valley" or homogenized effect. |
| /u/ApprehensiveGoat2734 And yet according to them dying your hair blue or having a nose ring is a crime against nature, God, and country. |
| /u/avcloudy To their credit, it's never been about being natural, it's all about making choices about your appearance that are non-traditional. It's exactly the same as them looking down on someone because they wear shorts to work instead of a suit and it comes from the same place. They don't like the expression, not that you changed your appearance. It's like their take on free speech, where they think everyone should be free to say the correct things and miss the point that the only rights that need to protected are the ones other people don't want you to exercise. |
| /u/bollvirtuoso Sure, but then they just argue about cancel culture, equivocating private actors and literal government censorship. |
| /u/bbusiello professionals also warn of the risks of overfilling, which can limit natural facial expressions and create an "uncanny valley" or homogenized effect. I prefer to spot my enemies on sight rather than wait til they open their racist, sexist, and homophobic mouths. But that's just me. Keep going! Get more filler! |
| /u/CritcoThinker Oh these women are trying to stay relevant in the patriarchy they inhabit. They know that being a young woman has much value to the men around them. Ironically aging is not easy to stop and the beauty standards they enforced by upholding men's standards are their own undoing. Awesome. Sick. But awesome. |
| /u/girlfriend_pregnant They shouldn't be called enhancements though, more neutrally "alterations" |
| /u/Wazula23 Theory I find appealing is it's like the gaudy powdered wigs of the French monarchy. It's not supposed to look "good", it's supposed to say "look what I can afford". |
| /u/rusty_handlebars Oh that's fascinating |
| /u/bbusiello Just another form of conspicuous consumption. |
| /u/sirtagsalot I flip off everyone of those I see. |
| /u/ChainLC vanity. never satisfied. |
| /u/PanicOnFunkotron Like renting a pineapple |
| /u/SexyMcBeast Yup. It's also a way to say "I'm fully in the club." There are few more visible and permanent ways to show you're in that clique than to literally alter the shape and look of your face. |
| /u/C0rinthian Yeah I was going to say: it's all about in-group signaling. But the comparison to the French monarchy might be a little unfair. I mean, those folks were slathering mercury on their faces and shit because they didn't know any better, it's not like... oh shit... fuck. |
| /u/SlogurkTheOverslime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costly_signaling_theory |
| /u/Cheap-Ad1821 It's like a face tattoo declaring you're a member of The Aryan Sisterhood |
| /u/kylehatesyou I like this one. This isn't just one procedure to "fix" something you don't like the way people get breast implants or a nose job, it's multiple procedures, done relatively quickly. Cheek fillers, and lip fillers, and Botox everywhere, and all the others over a year or two. I imagine people didn't just have one wig, same way those people didn't just have one suit or one dress. That makes me wonder if it kind of takes on the very rich version of that beauty salon thing some people have. Like the people that "need" to go weekly or biweekly or whatever to have their hair trimmed, or roots touched up, or nails filled in or whatever because their friends all do it too. So you have a group of people who are talking about the procedures they are having done, and because they're all feeding off of each other and eventually already done everything they can (and it's at least semi-permanent) they just keep going back for a little more and a little more until all of their faces look like a stone mask. |
| /u/j0y0 Kinda. At first it was to cover hair loss from syphilis. But once all the fancy people at court are doing it, rational people understand it's practical to fit in. |
| /u/Various_Opinion_900 People also legitimately thought it looked good. I swear to god in 1000 years someone's going to unearth my highschool photos and go: hm yes the bangs were actually covering the eye as a form of protection from the harmful radiation coming off of their primitive phone technology! Unaided it left them blind before they reached 20! And jeans were tight to stop the blood circulation and prevent raging erections they got when when mingling with their peers in large enclosed spaces - can you believe? They went to communal schools and had sex! How primitive... I'm so grateful we have our privacy pods and government issued AI partners. Progress sure is neat. |
| /u/Fancy-Trousers I thought it was because they hang out with shithead conservative men who lower their self-esteem constantly, leading to a desire to "fix" themselves. But that makes sense, too. |
| /u/andersonb47 My theory is that for most of human history, the elite differentiated themselves visually/physically in various ways, but usually clothing. Now that clothing and other physical items are generally extremely plentiful and easy to acquire, that status affirming behavior is now translated into something still relatively inaccessible - plastic surgery. It's worth noting that usually when we think about plastic surgery, it's something that we try to hide - the best surgeons' work is the hardest to see. But in the case of Mar-a-Lago Face, the point is to BE seen. It's a status marker. |
| /u/notflashgordon1975 Good, they can't disguise themselves when the real purge starts. |
| /u/Enibas A status marker and a sign of submission, they signal that they want to be part of the in-group. |
| /u/Throwawaylikeme90 What I want to know is how it evolved to looking like taking a scored sourdough and smashing it against a sliding glass door windowpane. Like, I'm no stranger to social signifiers. I've got plenty myself, I adorn my body with modifications and specific grooming to show where I came from knowingly, because it's important to me. It's easy for me to trace my signifiers lineage all the way back to skins, mods and rudeboys growing up in working-class neighborhoods like Liverpool, but this is a social strata that is altogether alienated from the mass of humanity for one and for two, they don't seem to like their history or their own shit culture. But legitimately, how the fuck did it get like THIS, of all things, is a very interesting question. |
| /u/Weak-Material-5274 Supernormal stimuli. If attention is money then looks are money. It doesn't mean someone has to look good, they just have to look in a way that is engaging. Mara Lago face is engaging, therefore it is money. |
| /u/Throwawaylikeme90 I'm aware of the concept, that's not granular enough to understand something this outlandish. I want tea my good bitch. 💅 |
| /u/DietSteve Honestly, think about it: what were we pushed through movies/tv/ads? Rail thin blonde with big tits. That became the standard look to try and achieve, now we mix it with BBLs and lip plumping and whatever else the Kardashians are peddling this week, mix that in with a healthy dose of conservative Christian repression, and you end up with *this*. The "I don't want to look like I got work done" look, bottle blonde, "hometown" girl. Both country and metro, clashing with each other in the never ending struggle for identity of who they think they should be. |
| /u/skenvoy I'm obsessed with this logic. |
| /u/Jops817 Right, like, I need a long form documentary about how people could make themselves look like hideous soulless ghouls as a social signifier. |
| /u/skenvoy Actually... read up on Venetian ceruse, a lead-based skin whitener. TLDR worn on your face to cover facial scars and give you a ✨highly desireable✨ white complexion (as a signal of status and wealth, not wacism), but it was super obvious and unnatural looking and y'know, lead poisoning gave you more facial scars and other nasty side affects. Ghouls for realsies. |
| /u/captainwacky91 These are people with enough wealth and power that they've been somewhat "uncoupled" from nature, for decades at a time. It would only be "natural" for them to become grotesques. I get the exact same feeling when Facebook decides to show me some 'roided-out mutant cattle. |
| /u/Lord_Alderbrand I'm confused how no one seems to be factoring in Trump himself. They try to look like 90s porn stars because Trump wants his people to look like 90s porn stars. He latched onto this look in his "heyday" and locked it in. Yeah, it's outdated and tacky. Trump is obsessed with television. He thinks about everything in terms of television and he considers himself The Director. He dictates how things should be, how people should look, how they should act, all in order to get Ratings. It's everybody else's primary job to make things look the way he wants. This is like, THE main thing Trump cares about. Period. So yeah, he tells the people in his admin to look that way. They hear him tell people to get work done. They hear him criticize others for not doing it. They see him hire new staff based on their looks. Everybody knows that their job is always on the line, so they try to obey in advance to hold onto Trump's approval, and it snowballs from there. Then they continue to warn/police each other to cover all their bases until it turns into a standardized look. Then his lower-level followers try to imitate it, and voila: Mar-a-Lago Face. |
| /u/scarytrafficcone it has been, it's a combination of in-group signaling (see the way evangelical women do their hair,) differentiation from the poor (I can afford this expensive cosmetic surgery,) and signaling feminine subservience i.e. showing with their appearance that they care about the men of a particular group's (in this case conservative rich guys) taste, which happens to also be women who have proactively signaled their willingness to participate in the group dynamic of power exchange |
| /u/sihaya09 They all get gender-affirming surgeries to increase sexual dimorphism. |
| /u/NewButOld85 Think of French aristocrats wearing ridiculous wigs and clown-white makeup back before the Revolution. Did they do it to look good? No - they looked like goddamn idiots. But it was a way to signal that they were able to afford the look, and that they belonged above the "commoners." Mar-A-Lago face plastic surgery is the same thing, just among rich conservatives. It's virtue signaling among their people. |
| /u/Wazula23 Hunger Games got so much right. |
| /u/Gloomy-Dingo4293 The older I get, the more I realise how scarily accurate those books are |
| /u/GearSalty2775 The Met Gala literally looks like an elitist Capitol party. |
| /u/exitwest Look up photos of the Kentucky Darby Attendees. It's Capitol fashion all over. |
| /u/koshgeo More like vice signaling. |
| /u/sulkee Well, no, not really. They used it to cover up their syphilitic scars actually. And it became a trend due to that. makeup and wigs were used to cover the scarring. |
| /u/Not_A_Clever_Man_ Maga face shows that you have enough disposable income to fuel your vanity. It shows you value money and appearance over everything else. It shows that you are as vain as dear leader and can be easily blackmailed and manipulated with money. |
| /u/Numes1 I've always thought the puppet from saw was more like them. 🤣🤣 |
| /u/Funkycoldmedici Authoritarians want to be like everyone else and everyone to be like them. Conformity, in-group identification is the one and only value conservatives truly hold. They do not actually care about anything else. |
| /u/Mo_Jack Like the whacko religions that pressure attendees into making weird noises and pretending that it was that individual's special language that only the Holy Spirit could understand. It is a test of conformity by humiliating yourself in public, much like gangs "blood in". |
| /u/rubbarz And its always naturally pretty 20 year olds getting their face filled to look 50. It still blows my mind that Karoline Levitt is 28. She looks as old as her husband. |
| /u/HotGarbage It's a gender affirming face. |
| /u/No_Helicopter1378 Isn't she the swimmer? Crazy that someone so young is getting so much work done already. |
| /u/bbusiello A "tied for 5th place" swimmer. |
| /u/blindspotted More like Rocky Dennis "Mask". |
| /u/mrnipper This probably goes a long way toward explaining it for a lot of them, at least until they get around to taking this down: The Dark Triad of Personality in Relation to Acceptance to Cosmetic Surgery Among University Students |
| /u/daddydrank So they never have to face themselves in the mirror. |
| /u/straylight_2022 Gotta hand it to her for being able to turn a fifth place finish into a four year and counting cash grab. |
| /u/anode8 Meanwhile, her college swim coach is facing allegations of sexual assault against some of her teammates. Not a peep from her about the actual problems. |
| /u/DizzyDjango Pablo Torre has a great episode on how she went from a nobody to making millions by spreading anti-trans hate across college campuses. Also talks about the coach and has interviews with former teammates. |
| /u/who-hash Hadn't seen that episode yet but I'm not surprised. Pablo Torre is one of the few doing actual journalism in sports in 2026. So proud to see this brother and his staff win a Pulitzer. |
| /u/Introverted_Extrovrt Nominated for a Peabody, too |
| /u/PDGAreject He also verified the accuracy of a video of harambe eating his own poop. So there's that too |
| /u/thetreat Pablo Torre, a true renaissance man of the modern times. |
| /u/Ok_Hornet_714 Here is the link for those that are interested https://youtu.be/iKUl8lkuGOc?si=kKpBdAQsv7PvnXrF |
| /u/papasan_mamasan Very interested, thank you! This video needs more views |
| /u/PM_ME_JJBA_STICKERS That episode was eyeopening for me. Riley Gaines is a rat who believes in absolutely nothing but making money from the grift. |
| /u/Think_Monk_9879 She's making millions? Really? |
| /u/DizzyDjango If I remember correctly, she's making around $250k per speaking engagement now. |
| /u/straylight_2022 She makes around half a million from the "institute" she is attached to and who knows what in individual speaking fees. |
| /u/maximumfacemelting So billionaires funding culture wars so they can have more tax breaks and political control. |
| /u/The-Real-Number-One The billionaire that is funding her is Trump's first Sec. of Education -- Betsy Devos. |
| /u/counterfitster Plenty of those billionaires are also true believers in the shitty side of it anyway. |
| /u/hunteddwumpus Plenty of poor people are fully true believers in hateful shit too |
| /u/CodifiedLikeUtil So you don't have to be rich to be stupid? |
| /u/jb_in_jpn Whatever keeps us divided and distracted. It's been a pretty good investment for them if you ask me. |
| /u/jeffp12 One of her big points was sharing the locker room with a * gasp * trans person. What if that evil trans did something!? They didn't, but what if!? Then she went and endorsed Donald Trump, a man who has famously been a backstage/dressing room creep on teen girls |
| /u/DrunkyMcStumbles And forced his way into a women's dressing room to assault a woman. |
| /u/mgbgtv8 And Riley Gaines' husband is not an American citizen |
| /u/_jump_yossarian But he's the white color. |
| /u/thorubos She's here to make money not ensure justice, or even be a good person. |
| /u/ScyllaIsBea Is this the girl who didn't like tying for fifth with a trans girl? |
| /u/moconahaftmere She didn't even mind. Interviews at the time quoted her as being supportive of the trans movement. She only switched her opinion once she was getting paid to do so. |
| /u/Sure_Land_8930 Fox News liked her pissing and moaning so much that they gave her "The Riley Gaines Show". https://www.foxnews.com/person/g/riley-gaines |
| /u/BusGuilty6447 Interestingly, she originally was not that upset over it. She tweeted something along the lines of wishing the trans athlete success (both in swimming and transition). RW media found out about the case, and they gave her a platform, a bunch of money, and here we are today. |
| /u/TrulyOutrageous42 If the US right wing didn't have manufactured outrage, they'd have nothing other than the criminal indictments waiting for them. |
| /u/MrGulio If Conservative voters didnt find fake things to be mad at they'd have to reckon with the fact that we live within their chosen economic system and they are fucking miserable. Either the system they proport to want is awful, or it works and they are miserable working within it. They really cannot mentally accept this so they have to invest reasons why "X thing is bad not like it used to be". |
| /u/Spookyrabbit Conservatives have never found or otherwise accidentally lucked into finding a fake thing to be mad at. Each thing is carefully selected and studied for its value in distracting conservative voters from the real agenda of conservatives, which they know no one would ever vote for. Right wing billionaires (and other anti-democracy entities) set up entire networks of companies to stage manage every step of everything conservative voters will be programmed to be mad at. If you watch them long enough you'll see their operatives bragging about what they've been able to weaponize, such as the time Christoper Rufo bragged about turning CRT - an obscure later-year law elective - into something conservative voters could blame for every single thing they hate about black people. |
| /u/CriticalDog Not true! The conservatives in the US have always been deeply racist. So, they've got that going for them. |
| /u/PM_ME_JJBA_STICKERS Interestingly, she was also really close to her swim coach and considered him a good mentor... The same coach who was repeatedly sexually abusing her own teammates and staff! |
| /u/cavalier24601 Worse than that: Riley had to be sent a 5th place trophy. They only had one and it went to the other person in 5th place. Clearly, trans athletes are ruining women's sports /s |
| /u/Signiference Finishing in 5th place and getting a trophy is the real problem. |
| /u/Wes_Warhammer666 Seriously. After 3rd, why the fuck is anyone getting a trophy? |
| /u/a_song_4U No one has gained MORE from the existence of trans people than this ridiculous bitch. She is giving speeches and on tv constantly because she was in a race that a trans person also competed in. She should have to kick back a percentage of her earnings to the trans community |
| /u/doneandtired2014 She is giving speeches and on tv constantly because she was in a race that a trans person also competed in. If you remove the trans athlete from the equation entirely, it does not change the fact this hate mongering twat still would've placed 5th, still wouldn't have been on the podium, and still would have finished her athletic career as a decent athlete as opposed to a great one. Competing against a trans athlete was the best thing to have ever happened* to her because she would be a fucking nobody if she hadn't. |
| /u/hypercosm_dot_net because she would be a fucking nobody if she hadn't. You're spot on about everything though. Imagine the complete emptiness a person must have to accept a role like this. |
| /u/doneandtired2014 Imagine the complete emptiness a person must have to accept a role like this. I might be an asshole with tendencies that border on sociopathic, but I can't imagine being the kind of maladjusted, amoral shitbag that feels compelled to spread and profit from hate just to make up for personal failures. |
| /u/Elsa_the_Archer I don't have to hand her shit. She's contributing to getting trans people killed. She can fuck right off. |
| /u/straylight_2022 I agree, I was just being sarcastic. |
| /u/Waiting4Reccession How do people even remember who these bimbos are |
| /u/raspymorten If you're a trans or just generally queer person, you've had to hear her talk a whole lot, for a really fucking long time, across tons of different platforms, about how much her life was ruined when she had to tie with a trans athlete. These voices get an insane amount of air time to spout this sort of stuff, so it's hard to not end up having the prominent ones get lodged into your brain. |
| /u/shoguante Money. The culture wars are a distraction from the 1% ripping everyone else off. |
| /u/Due-Cow9514 Reminder that when Riley Gaines was originally interviewed about her loss, she straight up didn't care. That's when reactionary media came knocking... |
| /u/Euphoric-Witness-824 Yep. The wealthy need their culture wars front and center constantly. They were, and still are, using trans people as one of their favorite boogeymen because it works really well for them. These right wingers by influencers are only popular because the wealthy own the news and social media platforms that hire them and push them to the top of everyone's algorithm. They suppress unifying voices and raise culture war decisive voices. It's all part of their gameplan and it's working really well for them. |
| /u/superscatman91 It wasn't even a loss. She tied for 5th. If Lia Thomas wasn't in the competition she would have still been in 5th place. |
| /u/Neon_Casino Look I agree with you, but the fact of the matter is, until we "win" the culture war (whatever that looks like) we won't get anywhere with the war that actually matters becasue around 50% of Americans are actively on the side of the ultra rich. Look over at the Conservative subreddit. They posted how "the left is going nuts now that Elon Musk is the world's first Trillionare" (their words, not mine) and all the comments are celebrating Musk and saying what a hard worker he is and how someone being a billionare doesn't affect us. The American right wing needs to be utterly demolished if there is even the slightest chance in hell that any progress against Billionares can be made. |
| /u/dobie1kenobi If the last 8 years have taught me anything, it's that there is no winning the culture war. I was raised to believe that the moral arc of the universe would eventually lead us to a Star Trek style unified planet that accepted all cultures as human first. I no longer believe this. No matter what technological advances we achieve, there will always be racists, bigots, and Nazis. No amount of prosperity will mollify them and no amount of punishment will quell them. We'd have a better time eradicating the cockroach. The trick is to get them out of power and keep their beliefs on the fringe. That is doable but what the Boomers forgot is, it's a daily struggle to keep them there. You can't give MLK a holiday and call it quits. |
| /u/Not_a_Rodeo_Clown We thought we were headed for Star Trek, but we're headed for The Expanse. |
| /u/JustaSeedGuy In fairness, this is the 2020s. Based on the timeline of Star Trek's fictional history, we're right on track for Star Trek. People forget that the utopia of Star Trek came after total societal and economic collapse and nuclear devastation on Earth. |
| /u/StevelandCleamer We don't get Star Trek without the Post-Atomic Horrors first It sounds like there's some bad stuff right before the Post-Atomic Horrors too, if you catch my drift. It doesn't hurt that the Vulcans were first contact either, a civilization that wasn't in a rush to help the remaining warmongers on Earth into weaponized starships. Unfortunately, I have lost faith in humanity's potential to survive beyond the lifespan of Earth. |
| /u/SDivilio If we get all of the fascists onto mars, that'll also put us on track for several Gundam variants as well |
| /u/Big_Kahuna_69 Hah, we're headed for Robocop, The Running Man, or Idiocracy. Take your pick. |
| /u/Vexxed72 Why pick? All three at the same time is sadly the most likely outcome. |
| /u/Neon_Casino Hard agree. But imo, that is winning the culture war. Of course there will always be racists, but if we can drive them back into the shadows where they belong, then that's a win. I think there is a way to "win" in this sense, but it will require a level of viciousness that I don't think a lot people are ready for. I'm not talking about just killing them all of course, but we need to make it so that being an open racist/hard right-winger in this country is impossible. If they are family, cut them off. If you have a business, do not serve them. If they have a business, do not give them your business. These people need to be treated as less than Human. Make them feel unwelcome EVERYWHERE. Basically, everything just short of physical violence. Will it cause them to change their ways? Nope. But it may cause them to stop being so proud of their own fucking stupidity. |
| /u/Grey_0ne I feel this... Every word of it. I've spent the last 20 years of my life on social media watching people try to debate, argue, quip, logic and moral our society in a utopian direction... Then in a moderately progressive direction... Then in a direction where we could at the very least respect the basic rights of others... And now after spending the last 20 years watching as things have only gotten worse, we're fighting for our lives (literally in some cases) against people who can't be fucked to believe in basic accountable facts, because their only real goal is to hurt the people they hate, so they've surrendered their souls over to ghouls like this who are only interested in making a buck off of them. It will get worse as our standards continue to reflect what's been normalized... |
| /u/ratherbealurker > and all the comments are celebrating Musk and saying what a hard worker he is and how someone being a billionare doesn't affect us. Mm hmm, mention George Soros and watch them flip out over a billionaire "paying protesters" and whatever else they claim he's backing. Then mention how Elon literally tried to pay people for their votes. Or sort of did? And how much money he throws into politics, and they're fine with that. Then hold up your 9.5 white card for their gymnastic abilities. |
| /u/rorschach2 First thing you did wrong was checking the conservative sub. That's almost all bots. |