Blog post #4

"President Barack Obama: 'YOLO man"

     In collaboration with Buzzfeed, President Barack Obama created a video "doing things everyone does but doesn't talk about". The video was to promote to promote his "signature health law", Obama Care. He practiced funny faces in the mirror and tried pronouncing oddly spelled words the way they appear such as Wednesday and February. He also pretended to shoot baskets and when caught deadpanned,  "Can I live?". He also used the famous phrase "Thanks Obama" when dropping his coffee and trying to dunk a cookie in milk that wouldn't fit in the glass. The "relatable" video was an attempt to connect with Americas youth. Several days after the video, Obama made a statement "My advice to a future president is increasingly try to bypass the traditional venues that create divisions and try to find new venues within this new media that are quirkier, less predictable,"
    This relates to our government class because we've discussed politicians self promotion tactics, though they're usually in the form of campaigning. Personally, i think this video was a smart move. I think many politicians are scared of appearing unprofessional and this video is definitely a breakthrough. It's a very smart tactic to reach for the youth because most politicians don't, leaving them very open to anything directed towards them.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/12/politics/obama-selfies-video-buzzfeed/index.html