Jezebel Investigates: Is This a Finger, a Bicep, or Jared Kushner's Cursed Pec?
PoliticsTheodore Kushner, the youngest son of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, was born two years ago today. To commemorate the occasion, Trump shared the following photo on Twitter and Instagram:
A lovely moment, no doubt. Here we have what appears to be a man, presumably Jared Kushner, wearing work slacks and no shirt, holding the infant Theodore, as is common among many parents both as a bonding exercise and popular aesthetic in newborn photography.
I now ask that you direct your attention to the far right edge of the image:
You may have to squint to see it, but there appears to be a sliver of additional skin, presumably belonging to Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner, disrupting what is otherwise a clean line of the photo crop.
The question before us now: What are we looking at, exactly?
An early consensus emerged among my colleagues at Jezebel:
My gut told me the same: this was indeed a pec—the sliver of a pectoral muscle on, presumably, the chest of White House Innovations Director Jared Kushner. Still, could I be sure? I raised the possibility to Anne Branigin, news fellow at The Root.
A reasonable question. (Anne also consulted a doctor who is also her friend, who agreed it was likely not a pec.) The placement of the pec would mean that this man, presumably Jared Kushner, our country’s primary negotiator in the Middle East, would have a very short torso or, alternatively, a very droopy pec. He does not appear to have either of those things, according to this photo published by The Daily Mail and approvingly tweeted by this person below:
My uncertainty only growing, I considered another possibility: It is the photographer’s finger—a simple mistake!—blemishing what should be a clean image.
Then, an unexpected development:
Could it be the bicep of the man’s left arm, presumably the left arm of Jared Kushner, the White House liaison on criminal justice reform? This theory, however, raises additional questions: Jared Kushner, who oversees diplomatic relations with both China and Mexico, is simply not that buff. In order for the left bicep to be that pronounced in the image, he would have to be flexing super hard and have very big muscles. Directing your attention once again to the images published by The Daily Mail and approvingly tweeted by the person below, neither of these things appear to be true:
This development truly fucked me up. Paralyzed with this new possibility, I turned to a colleague with a man body:
Clearly at a dead end, I turn to you, readers. Assuming this is Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the president of the United States: Is this a pec, a finger, a bicep, or something else entirely? Is it somehow meaningful that “cep” is the reverse of pec? Please help us!