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And of course, the theories followed.
Theory one: the escape plan.
People swore this was the first step in a grand disguise strategy. Lose the mustache, change the look, slip through an airport wearing sunglasses and a bad wig, vanish into another country. The mental images alone fueled thousands of posts.
Theory three: humiliation politics.
Rumors that he lost a bet. Dominoes. Poker. Some shadowy high-level meeting where the mustache was the price of defeat. Absurd, but wildly popular.
None of it confirmed. None of it needed to be.
What made the whole thing sting wasn’t just the prank—it was the psychology behind it. That headline worked because millions of people were already primed for it to be real. The world is so saturated with chaos, collapse, and political instability that the idea of something catastrophic felt believable without evidence.
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