Sylvester Stallone has a surprisingly strong Instagram game. The Rocky throwback stuff is cool, but even aside from that, Stallone's 'gram is littered with pictures of him and his family, and it's legitimately adorable. You know how Rocky Balboa was rebranded as a lovable old for Creed, and it was so endearing and funny that Stallone almost won an Oscar off of it? That's exactly how his Instagram is. It's like your grandpa had a social media presence. Like, look at this:
Or this!
Wow, that's fucking excellent. (It also helps that Sly's voice is so iconic and inherently, low-key funny—it makes reading his captions a better, fuller experience.)
But yesterday, Sylvester Stallone's Instagram reached a peak. The most amazing thing happened: He posted a photo of himself at the gym with three young men, and I'm pretty sure he Photoshopped a cigar into his mouth in post-production. BRUH:
Let's walk through the emotions I went through when I came across this photo. First, I was like, "Aw, cool pic of Stallone and some dudes, wow, he's so much more ripped than them." Then I was like, "Is he smoking a cigar in the gym?" And then, "Wait, why does that cigar look weird? What is happening here? No. He didn't. He did NOT Photoshop a cigar onto his face. Did he?"
Oh my god, he did.
So basically, Sly took a photo in the gym with three strapping youths, looked at it, and was like, "The only thing missing here is a cigar." He must've been so upset that he forgot to bring a Cuban to the gym that day. THE ONE TIME I COME TO THE GYM CIGAR-LESS AND SOMEONE ASKS FOR A PIC! So, he did what had to be done—and thanks to technology, you can look like you're smoking a cigar all the time. The only problem is, Sly had his mouth shut tight as hell for this photo, putting his go-to cigar-Photoshopper-guy in a tough spot. The only option was to mash the cigar into Stallone's face, in the general vicinity of his mouth, and make it look like Sly has a facial indentation specifically reserved for tobacco products.
You know how much irrational confidence it takes to try to pass this off as a real thing? Only the guy who pulled a horse out of two feet of snow and beat Apollo Creed in a footrace could do this. I'm not even mad, it's amazing. One other thing: I tried finding the actual cigar Sly's guy used, and I think I got pretty close:
A little color correction, and that's the one.
I love everything about this. I hope it becomes Sylvester Stallone's new thing. I hope, months from now, we're ALL poorly Photoshopping cigars onto our photos.
