President Selfie Stick and Managed Expectations
The pop culture President is so pop culturey
Earlier this week, President Obama sat down to promote Obamacare interview with Buzzfeed and Vox.
That the President chose listacles, cat memes, and explainer ‘journalism’ was not unnoticed by Right leaning media, and thus outrage ensued.
I yearn for my President looking Presidential and SERIOUS right now #ObamaSelfie #PoliticalPanel @FoxNews
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) February 13, 2015
Many, like Fox New’s Greta Van Susteren simply want our president to be SERIOUS.
ISIS is crucifying and beheading their way across the Middle East, Yemen is in shambles, thanks to Senate Democrats, DHS could potentially start the month of March unfunded, Montana is trying to ban yoga pants, Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show, and the whole world is going to hell.
And here’s our President turned gif, wielding a Selfie Stick, striking his best Tom Cruise in a dirty mirror.
I get it. I really do.
But there’s just one problem (well, many problems, but for the sake of this post, we’ll focus on one) — we don’t have a serious President.
Our President, for better or worse, enjoys the company of Beyonce, frequents the world’s finest golf courses, Slow Jammed the News on Late Night TV (to be fair, so did Mitt Romney), hosts White House parties that would make Andrew Jackson jealous, sat Between Two Ferns with that guy from The Hangover, and loves to pretend he’s the one who pulled the trigger, ridding the world of Osama bin Laden.
He is our pop culture President.
Wishing him to be a more serious man will not a more serious man make. So why bother?
It’s a matter of managing expectations, really. While OUTRAGE might make good social media fodder, after six years of living with an unserious President, one would hope we’d learn to expect well, more unseriousness.
No combination of huffing, puffing, pithy comments, witty Facebook memes, or pointing out the obvious truth that he is leading our nation to the depths of despair will change Obama’s behavior. Though we should note such behavior lest we be doomed to repeat history and whatnot.
Unfair as it may be, to quote de Tocqueville, “we have the government we deserve,” being a democratic republic and all. Thankfully, we’re only stuck with President Selfie Stick for approximately two more years (can the 22nd amendment get some love?).
So it seems our hope lies ahead. And in the eternal belief that we are the greatest damn country ever devised by mankind. In the meantime, I plan to drink lots of whiskey work my hardest to ensure we are able to successfully elect an actual leader with better taste in art to the White House. Maybe even one who takes selfies oh, I don’t know, after international terrorist cells have met their demise?
Follow Kemberlee Kaye on Twitter
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Look at the bright side.
He finally came out of the closet, as the clown that he’s been from day one.
Or Obama could be demonstrating his desire to be a Proctologist and photograph the southern exposure.
Now it makes sense.
Kemberlee left out of 1 of the letter O’s in the headline.
“The po*p culture President is so po*p culturey”
President Narcisstick.
Stick a fork in us, we’re done.
Dear prezzy….stick it where the sun don’t shine…
My problem with the whole thing was not that he did it or that it demeans the office of the President.
It certainly does that, but this clown has been demeaning the office of the President ever since he saw the back of his last election and has said, ‘F*** all of you, I’m going to do whatever I want’. At least this was benign clownishness that didn’t directly hurt the American people.
No, my problem with it was that it was just BAD and stupid. Saying stupid shit like ‘yolo man’ is what aging men do around their kids to try and sound ‘hip’ and ‘cool’ or ‘rad’ or ‘fly’ (as you go progressively further back in the timeline). The statement doesn’t even freaking apply in the situation. It’s like somebody 10 years ago telling a younger crowd that they were cool because they just learned how to ‘search the google on the internet’.
Among the younger crowd, things are generally answered with a universal eye roll and the thought (often verbalized), “What a moron, just give it up old man’.
This ‘commercial’ looks like something put together by a 45 year old man searching the internet for ‘cool’ things and mishmashing them together without any idea of what they actually mean.
He is Nero fiddling while Rome burns.
Here’s what I don’t get about this….why do they do a video like this when the deadline for sign-up is a couple of days away? Poor planning and just a total waste of time and totally inefficient government like always.
Because NO ONE is signing up.
Have you noticed local TV affliates running news spots pushing signing up for Obamacare, as well as running lots and lots of public service ads for Obamacare?
First, ignore the thumbs-down. Hit it by accident while trying to comment.
I’d guess pure, unadulterated desperation!!
Are those INCANDESCENT bulbs?
Obama is a cartoon character for protracted adolescents.
How much more damage could he do if he was “serious”?
I’d really prefer not knowing the hard way.
what a clown!!
So… Multimillionaire president with a federally-paid full time photographer goofs around with a selfie stick to take pictures of himself looking ‘cool.’ (and coincidently has the photographer take pictures of himself while he’s taking pictures of himself)
Can you imagine how the press would howl if this were a Republican?