Donald Trump ran on a platform that promised to protect America from her enemies, though he’s mostly been focused on throwing his new, presidential weight around to secure footholds in foreign countries for his business and malign privately-owned commercial enterprises over who they choose to do business with. But just like he threatened the press, the new troll in chief appears ready to take on democracy’s greatest foe—a teenage girl with a website full of kittens.
San Francisco resident Lucy used to run a website called Trumpscratch, which, like the name and above image suggest, involved batting at images of Trump with digital kitten paws. This was an offense too great for Trump to bear, though—no, not the part about the cat-scratch fever, but the use of his name, which is an “internationally known and famous” trademark. And his lawyers are right that the name automatically conjures up a mental image, though it’s hardly one that’s representative of success. But in any case, they sent a cease-and-desist letter to Lucy, who tells The Hollywood Reporter that she can’t believe the president has time to throw a hissy fit over every negative portrayal.
The fact that as president he still has teams going around bothering to shut down silly sites like mine is outrageous. Literally all my site is, is punching him with kitten paws. A president should not have the time or care to hire people to shut sites like mine down. He should be running the country, not tweeting about TV ratings or anything else like that.
Showing the same resilience that Trump does in making his way down a flight of stairs, Lucy stood by her concept, and has changed the domain name to KittenFeed. It’s not quite as evocative as ”Trump Scratch,” but at least the site is still operational, and now leaving a greater mark than before. Go ahead and check it out—the autoplaying Rick Astley song will make you think you’ve been Rickrolled, but it’s just there to sum up Lucy’s feelings.
UPDATE: We got trolled, basically. KittenFeed/Trumpscratch didn’t exist before March 1, which is when “Lucy” claimed to have received the cease-and-desist letter. Here’s our correction.