It was an event tailored to a digital audience, but a set of presidential interviews with YouTube stars on Thursday was notable for its clunky physical limits.
Three temporary living-room sets were erected in the East Room of the White House as backdrops for the trio of digital personalities to interview President Barack Obama. The president, as if locked after hours on the set of The Price Is Right, sat knob-kneed for about 10 minutes in each mini-set before standing and wandering to the next.
The questions had the same improvised feel as the sets, but to positive effect. One questioner, GloZell Green, a peppy comedienne who favors lipstick in a bright shade of her surname, challenged the president on the recent US rapprochement with Cuba. “The guy puts ‘dick’ in dictatorship,” she said of Raúl Castro.
Obama smiled broadly, closed his eyes, and paused, before telling her that the United States had had the same Cuba policy since he was born, and it hadn’t served either country.
Bethany Mota, 19, whose YouTube tips about bedroom decor and hair maintenance have attracted more than 8 million subscribers, asked the president what superpower he would like to have.
“The flying thing seems pretty cool,” he said. “Sort of zipping around. As long as you could stay warm. The invisibility thing seems a little sneaky to me. You know, listening to people. So I guess the flying thing.”
In reply to a question about same-sex marriage, Obama said that gay and lesbian couples should be guaranteed freedom from discrimination. “The idea that we wouldn’t treat them like the brothers and sisters we are doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said.
The White House press shop has consistently experimented with unorthodox venues for Obama, who was the first sitting president to appear on a late-night comedy show. In 2012, Obama did an “Ask Me Anything” on reddit. The president has participated in Google+ chats following the State of the Union address for four years running.
The three interviewers were leading YouTube “creators” – producers who maintain personal channels on whatever topic. Each of the creators who interviewed the president has millions of subscribers, audiences to rival a major network television newscast.
GloZell, as she is known, whom the White House billed as “the most-followed African American woman on YouTube” with 3.3 million subscribers, told the president she had cut all the hoods off her husband’s sweatshirts because she feared he would be shot by “the po po”.
Obama told her that most police were hardworking and fair but that studies showed that racial profiling existed. “You get better policing when you have confidence that the police are protecting and serving all people, and not showing bias,” he said.
GloZell gave the president three tubes of green lipstick but botched explaining whom they were for. “One for your first wife – Oh!” she said.
“Do you know something I don’t know?” Obama quipped.
The event ended the only way it could have.
“Actually, one more question for you,” said Mota. “Can you take a selfie with me?”
“Let’s do it,” said the president.
