Obama Seeks Broader Audience Through YouTube Personalities
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — No cringe. No dazzle. No edge.

President Barack Obama picked three of the most popular YouTube content creators for an interview Thursday, hoping to reach an audience typically not tuned to the daily give and take of Washington and its politics.

After all, these were YouTube personalities with hits such as “The five worst places to vomit,” and “My push-up bra will help me get my man.” But the weirdness, the limit-pushing, the cuteness that has contributed to the questioners’ success in social media was not much in evidence. Instead, Obama encountered fairly mundane questions about current affairs — from North Korea to terrorism, to marijuana laws to police and race relations.

If there were viral moments, they came during his session with GloZell Green, a popular YouTube fixture known for her extreme acts like eating a ladle full of cinnamon. She asked Obama about his Cuba policy, declaring that the Castros “put the dic in dictatorship.” Obama smiled.

She also offered the president three samples of her trademark green lipstick as gifts for his daughters — and for the woman she called Obama’s “first wife.”

“You know something I don’t?” Obama cracked before Green corrected herself and referred to Michelle Obama as “first lady.”

Bethany Mota, who has found success pitching advice to young people, asked Obama what super power he would fancy. Obama allowed as to how flying would be “pretty cool.” But then he amended, declaring that speaking any language would be his ideal power. “I don’t think it would make a really good movie,” he conceded.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the approach aimed to put Obama in touch with “particularly popular YouTube creators.”

“It simply is an effort to engage as many Americans as possible in various venues,” he said.

Indeed, Green, Mota and the third questioner, Hank Green, routinely draw hundreds of thousands of viewers to their YouTube videos.

At its peak, though, the Obama session drew slightly more than 80,000 viewers. But those were live, real-time viewers. Social media is about going viral over time.

For that, the White House will have to wait. And see.

歐巴馬「第一個妻子」把公關變笑話

YouTube網站三名人氣最旺的紅人，22日下午應邀到白宮訪問歐巴馬總統。這項有意吸引年輕人的宣傳作業，卻因有人提歐巴馬「第一個妻子」，成為公關災難。

以吃辣椒、用早餐乾穀片「洗澡」等各種搞怪影片竄紅的格洛潔兒‧葛林（GloZell Green），拿出三條她專門用的綠色唇膏交給歐巴馬，送給他的兩個女兒和「第一個妻子」（first wife），歐巴馬愣了一下說：「你知道什麼我不知道的嗎？」對方趕快改口說「第一夫人」（first lady）。

歐巴馬難得接受記者訪問，白宮卻安排總統在百忙中，撥出時間與這些網路紅人對話，希望吸引從推特和臉書等社群媒體得到新聞的年輕群體，讓他們對公共政策產生切身感受，歐巴馬特別為此從堪薩斯州趕回來，到刻意布置的白宮東廳會見這些網路紅人。

但是，50分鐘的「YouTube訪問」才進行不到一半，總統「第一個妻子」的笑話已傳遍全國，把這整個精心安排的活動變成公關災難，最後大家可能只記得格洛潔兒的綠色唇膏和歐巴馬的「第一個妻子」。YouTube的即時統計顯示，在訪問過程，最多只有8萬4000多人觀賞。

已婚的格洛潔兒是住在洛杉磯的影片部落格主，本身為非洲裔，經常塗綠色唇膏。她在一段著名的諧趣錄影中，宣稱她愛歐巴馬，因為「他黑！他黑他黑他黑! 不錯，我就是這麼說的! 」

另一個YouTube明星，19歲的貝瑟妮‧莫塔（Bethany Mota）問歐巴馬：「如果你有超能力，你希望是什麼？」歐巴馬答以：能用任何人的母語與他們對話，以及飛行能力。

第三個訪問者，漢克‧格林（Hank Green），詢問歐巴馬的國情咨文提出的計畫是否只是癡人說夢，「沒有一項在政治上行得通，對不對？」歐巴馬對此報以制式說詞。

採訪白宮新聞的媒體記者，早已習慣出入白宮10幾年還沒有機會向現職總統發問，對白宮向這些年輕毛小子提供他們求之而不可得的特權嗤之以鼻。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/01/22/us/politics/ap-us-obama-youtube.html

2015-01-24 10:37:07 聯合晚報 記者黃秀媛