It wasn’t an act of heroism. Helping a fainting woman wasn’t even particularly remarkable. It was the kind of thing that almost any remotely decent person would do for someone who appeared to be losing consciousness. Nevertheless, right-wing conspiracy theorists were quick to claim that the incident was staged. YouTube videos of the speech are full of criticisms of President Obama, with almost every single comment showing some variation of, “This was staged!”
“Fainting Woman” conspiracy theories abound. She faked fainting! She was drunk! She’s transgender!

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ website Infowars similarly went into a frenzy attempting to find evidence that the “Fainting Woman” incident was staged. One user claimed, “He used to fake these fainters and ask somebody to get them water. O has staged these fainters several times in the past.” Others pointed out that she was “looking toward the teleprompter” and that the people around her seem to be “in on it.” The phrase “I gotcha,” was said by several to be a manipulative line thrown to the American people to make them feel good about the Affordable Care Act.

Almost no one acknowledged that Karmel Allison was actually ill. Those who did unanimously decided that she was obviously drunk or high (because everyone knows, of course, that sick people always deserve it and somehow did it to themselves). These complaints included the accusation that Ms. Allison “may be one of Obama’s transgender o-bots.” (I’m not even going to try to figure out what that means.)