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US President Barack Obama is the embodiment of cool, not only in reaching out to the young through the use of social media but also as a cool parent, writes Theresa Manavalan NO world leader has utilised cool as much as Barack Obama as a means to crack open the oyster shell of younger people all over the world. Like them, he has all the cool tools for talking, from Facebook to Twitter to a YouTube channel with followers in the ranks of quazillions. Still, gadgets don’t make a person cool. You still need to be it. Here’s a quick tour of Obama’s cool moments in history.
RAP COOL Already on the road to the White House, Obama unleashed his iPod playlist on Rolling Stones magazine, which endorsed the candidate entirely. The keywords for the March 2008 moment: playlist and iPod. Jay-Z, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Ludacris, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Yo-Yo Ma, Charlie Parker were inside. And the Rolling Stones band, of course. Oof, it was even
politically correct. In the previous year, it was already very clever to have overtly courted the voter clout of the hip-hop generation by letting us all know that he thought the art form was genius. By July 2008, he unceremoniously deleted Ludacris from that same playlist because the pro-Obama rapper’s song Politics As Usual used really tough language to viciously rough up political rivals, including Hilary, Bush and McCain. Obama invoked his parent status and said: “While Ludacris is a talented individual he should be ashamed of these lyrics.” Obama took a stand. It was personal. Luda, that was rappin’ genius cool.
POPSTAR COOL He won a Grammy. Popstar cool. His recording of Dreams From My Father won the 2006 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album (audio books, poetry, storytelling). Embedding himself in the red carpet crowd this way was a bold strike as he cranked up the machinery for the journey to the White House. Later, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter won this award too. Last year, Michelle’s book American Grown, produced by Scott Creswell and Dan Zitt, was nominated.
BAD BOY COOL Obama chose Renegade as his codename. The meaning of that word theoretically shouldn’t be even remotely associated with the leader of the free world. It means traitor or “having treacherously changed allegiance”. For that, you gotta give him bad boy cool. The US Secret Service uses codenames for presidents, first ladies and other important people. It used to be for security and dates to the time when sensitive electronic communication was not encrypted. These days, they exist for clarity, but mostly for tradition. Michelle is Renaissance, Malia is Radiance and Sasha is Rosebud. STRATEGIC COOL His codename went on to become a biography title. In Renegade: The Making Of A President, Richard Wolffe wrote: Obama’s decision to offer Hilary Clinton the job of secretary of state came surprisingly early. Well before the end of the primaries, when his staff and friends still felt hostile to her (for her aggressive campaign), Obama decided that Clinton possessed the qualities to carry his diplomacy to the rest of the world. “We actually thought during the primary, when we were pretty sure we were going to win, that she could end up being a very effective secretary of state,” he told me later. “I felt that she was disciplined, that she was precise, that she was smart as a whip, and that she would present a really strong image to the world... I had that mapped out.” That, folks, is strategic cool. No kechik-hati crap. She was a worthy candidate anyway, and there would be naturally occurring, global-scale pressure on Hilary to behave herself. INSPIRATION COOL Which brings us to Moby Dick. Herman Melville’s celebrated classic earned new celebrity status when it popped up on Obama’s reading list in the run-up to the 2012 elections, together with Toni Morrison’s Song Of Solomon. Moby Dick was already 161 years old and still considered a treasure of world literature, described often as a beautiful and beguiling novel, full of metaphor, imagery and sexual innuendo. Critics have said that it’s a deranged rant. Still Melville’s narrator Ishmael did land some eminently unforgettable lines, like “... Retain O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.” Ah, that does sound like Mr Obama. The stuff of inspirational cool.
DRESS COOL He told the folks at MTV that brothers should pull up their pants. “You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. Come on. Some people might not want to see your underwear. I’m one of them.” Say it, bro, just say it. Didn’t try to be popular.
KID COOL Keeping promises to the children. Obama promised the children that they could get a pet when he became president. That’s how Bo, the black-and-white Portuguese Water Dog, went from nodog to First Mutt. In parenting, the ultimate sin is breaking a promise to a child, especially a biggie like that. On the same scale as Disneyland for 8As. Every single one of the world’s 2.2 billion children saw that. So did their parents. Reading all the Harry Potter books to his girls also ranks really high on the parentometer. Most parents don’t read, fullstop.
COUPLE COOL No other married man in the world has made “date night” so, well, cool. Date night! Pfff.. can you hear all that whining from a planet full of married people who don’t go out anymore... TALK SHOW COOL No other world leader has been on as many TV talk shows as Obama, or milked the pervasive nature of syndicated talk shows, or profited from the ability of sharp humour to latch on younger audiences. The one that will linger forever is surely Between Two Ferns. “I have to know: What is it like to be the last black president?” asked Zach Galifianakis, playing the anti-social buffoon. Obama responded: “Seriously? What’s it like for this to be the last time you ever talk to a president?”
YOU DA MAN COOL Bending over to let a little boy touch your hair, just because he wanted to know if it felt the same. Pete Souza, the White House photog got the pic that stayed viral ever since. Getting Michelle Obama to say: “I want people to look at me and see what an investment in public education can look like.”
- NST
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Post time 27-4-2014 03:20 PM
