In the beginning, first lady Melania Trump was mocked for her absence from the White House. Then she was criticized for her clothes and her shoes. On Wednesday some conspiracy theorists on Twitter were convinced she wasn't even Melania — she's a body double!

Soon after a tweet asserting this was posted, the reaction tweets were off to the races as jokesters, paranoids, gif-makers and Trump supporters vied with one another to make the case, knock it down or just have a good time posting clever pictures and videos.

More proof that startling numbers of people on Twitter have way too much time on their hands? That seemed to be the feeling in the exasperated East Wing.

"Once again we find ourselves consumed with a ridiculous non-story when we could be talking about the work the first lady is doing on behalf of children, including the opioid crisis that is gripping our nation," said Trump's spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, in an email to USA TODAY Thursday. In recent weeks, the first lady has focused on fighting opioid addiction as a cause.

For the record, there is no Melania Trump body double, but that didn't stop the blathering about it. Here's the tweet that started it:

"This is not Melania. To think they would go this far & try & make us think its (sic) her on TV is mind blowing. Makes me wonder what else is a lie," declared Joe Vargas, who goes by the Twitter name of BuyLegalMeds. Make of that what you will.

The video he posted early Wednesday was taken from CNN, possibly shot through a window and also while it was raining, last Friday. The first lady and President Trump were on the South Lawn of the White House preparing to leave for a visit to a Secret Service training facility in nearby Maryland.

Was Vargas joking or serious? Did he mistake the vagaries of camera quirks for conspiracy? Not entirely clear but Vargas posted more tweets to make his case that the woman standing by Trump's side was not his wife.

That set off a surge of mocking and wacky tweets, most unfriendly to anyone named Trump.

"Fake Melania Trump revealed to be elusive criminal mastermind Carmen Sandiego," joked TrumpsTaxes.

"okay look this "Melania body-double travels w Trump" story is silly I mean where would they find another woman willing to go places with him," snarked goldengateblond.

Some couldn't help linking Melania to the Kardashians, specifically momager Kris Jenner, who once riffed on her popular reality show, "This is a case for the FBI."

One popular tweet compared Melania to Joanne the Scammer, an internet character created and portrayed by comedian Branden Miller, a man with a beard dressed as a woman who "scams" rich men.

In the tweet, one user asks, "Are you really Melania Trump?," and links to a gif of Joanne the Scammer saying, "Let's move on to something that really matters."

Comedy writer Nick Jack Pappas mocked Twitter's obsession du jour with references to actual fake-news drivel spread by the conspiracy-minded members of the Trump base.

"These Melania Trump body double conspiracy theories are ridiculous. Let's focus on real stories like #PizzaGate and #SethRich," read his sarcastic post.

Snap "polls" were popular. Choices included "cloned in a Russian lab," "has a twin sister" and "everyone is crazy."

Some Trump supporters were not amused. "Of course liberals who believe in #TrumpRussia conspiracy theories would believe that Melania Trump is actually using a body double," scoffed Twitter user Makada, who identifies as a "nationalist, conservative" on social media.

Colette, a Trump supporter, declared, "Melania Trump is Drop Dead Gorgeous & DNC is so jealous that they can't even see straight!"

By the way, as BuzzFeed pointed out, this body-double speculation has happened before and to Hillary Clinton, when Trump supporters trumpeted their suspicion that Clinton had been replaced by a decoy during the 2016 campaign.

All this Twitter twaddle swamped the other FLOTUS news on Wednesday: At a ceremony this Friday she will formally donate her vanilla silk, off-the-shoulder inaugural gown to the Smithsonian's hugely popular First Lady Collection, as 26 previous first ladies have done.

The gown, designed by Trump with designer Hervé Pierre, featured a slit skirt, ruffled accent trim from the neckline to the hem and a claret ribbon around the waist. Pierre also is scheduled to attend the event at the National Museum of American History.