#youtubeasksobama

Has anyone here seen Ingrid Nilsen asking President Obama about why pads and tampons are taxed as luxury items in about 40 states? He apparently did not know that this was a thing. God Bless.

https://medium.com/@hankgreen/holy-shit-i-interviewed-the-president-fa3e8fb44d16

This. This article by Hank Green is absolutely fantastic.

I know that I’m a bit late on this, but I finally got a chance to watch President Obama’s interview with YouTubers Hank Green, GloZell Green, and Bethany Mota. A lot of news stations had issues with Obama’s choice to be interviewed by these YouTube stars, and I was pretty angered by this. I’m not too familiar with GloZell’s or Bethany’s work, but I do watch vlogbrothers regularly and love YouTube as a whole. So for anyone who wants to see what the “target audience” thought of the interview, here it is:

As a teenager who is always busy with school, sports, and a lot of other activities, I rarely if ever have time to read, watch, or listen to the news. I know it’s something that I really should be doing, considering I will be allowed to vote relatively soon, but it’s something I haven’t found the time for.

It was for this reason that I found watching this YouTube video extremely instructive for me. It gave me an overview of Obama’s policies and some main issues in the world today. Now, I’m going to make it completely clear that I don’t feel politically educated enough to take a side on most of the things the president talked about (and I suppose by saying this I further illustrate the point of today’s youth being disengaged). However, I can say that the interview helped me feel informed, and that overall I RESPECT Obama’s effort to try to connect to young people today.

So what if the YouTubers didn’t ask the president the toughest questions in all of human history? So what if GloZell made a mistake when giving the president her signature green lipstick? (I’m sure if I was talking to the president on a live stream and being watched to millions of people on YouTube I would probably mess up too.) Just as Hank said in the above article, the three interviewers were REAL. They asked real questions that real watchers could understand, and I think they did a great job about touching upon a very comprehensive list of topics (health care, same-sex marriage, Cuba, education, and bullying, to name a few).

I completely agree with Hank in this article when he says that young people are distrusting of today’s news and media. As someone who reads dystopian literature regularly, how could I not be somewhat distrusting of things I am told? And when I assume that news channels don’t give me any reason to commit to watching them, why should I watch? On the other hand, when I saw this interview I felt that these YouTubers were being honestly themselves, something that gives them legitimacy among viewers (as Hank put it).

My generation, most of the time, WANTS to be engaged. We want to be heard, but we need accurate information so we can form opinions about HOW we want to be heard. And it is for this reason that I really appreciate this YouTube interview. I will not stand for these three amazing, successful, insightful people discredited as a mistake by President Obama. They are great people who are part of a media platform that deserves to be heard. Shout out to Hank, GloZell, and Bethany for doing an awesome job; keep doing what you’re doing.