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Obama’s Charlottesville Response Most-Liked Tweet Ever

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31–40 of 56 posts

Re: Obama’s Charlottesville Response Most-Liked Tweet Ever

#31
post #11

I find myself weighing whether it's better to get the unemotional, unadulterated statement from a President or the focus-grouped, feel-good, superficial statement. I can see why someone would prefer either side, but I find both wanting.

So you think Obama hired a focus group to test if quoting Nelson Mandela would work? And to call Trump's statement unemotional and unadulterated seems weird, because the teleprompter driven statement was delivered in a way that seemed so forced and inauthentic, it rang as false. Sometimes emotion is needed to convey gravity and authenticity of a statement. I'm pretty sure if Obama was still President, he could have g…

Obama did a better job communicating with emotion through a tweet, than Trump did with a live press conference.

Re: Obama’s Charlottesville Response Most-Liked Tweet Ever

#33
post #11

I find myself weighing whether it's better to get the unemotional, unadulterated statement from a President or the focus-grouped, feel-good, superficial statement. I can see why someone would prefer either side, but I find both wanting.

So you think Obama hired a focus group to test if quoting Nelson Mandela would work? And to call Trump's statement unemotional and unadulterated seems weird, because the teleprompter driven statement was delivered in a way that seemed so forced and inauthentic, it rang as false. Sometimes emotion is needed to convey gravity and authenticity of a statement. I'm pretty sure if Obama was still President, he could have g…

Every Obama picture seems so staged, and you must be kidding yourself if you think he doesn't have a social media team making sure his public image is always on point.

I don't even know what teleprompter statement your talking about, as I haven't been paying that much attention to this Charlottesville situation. I'm just talking about his tweets in general, which are embarrassingly unthought-out. For better or worse, we all know what's really going on in his mind. He's not going to pose for a cute picture the same day he's ordering another drone strike.

Personally, I don't need emotional statements, but I see how people do. Like I said, I don't care for either. It's just an interesting dichotomy.

Re: Obama’s Charlottesville Response Most-Liked Tweet Ever

#35
The Tweet: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion."

Okay, but infants don't have the capacity to judge religion, or a person's background, but full points for the warm and fuzzy good will.

Feel good tweets aside, what bothers me is when a child is "born a Muslim" or "born a Christian, or other religion". It's my opinion that forcing children into a religion from age zero, weaving the religion into the very fabric of the child's upbringing and family life; dressing them differently so they're divided from their non-religious peers, is unreasonable parenting. At worst, psychological manipulation.

Re: Obama’s Charlottesville Response Most-Liked Tweet Ever

#36

Perhaps it's popular because it's not true. But it should be true, and everyone wishes it was true. The evolutionary basis of xenophobia is well-understood. A quick search turns up, for example: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/... Babies of about the same age as the ones shown in Obama's tweet already display instinctive xenophobia: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/are-babies-b…

>Perhaps it's popular because it's not true Why would something being untrue make it popular?

Have you watched the news and any kind of social media lately?

Re: Obama’s Charlottesville Response Most-Liked Tweet Ever

#37

This type of tweets or ideas are not useful, and they are just too easy to produce. We all know people can have nice words and hearts. That does not prevent them being indifferent to what they did to other peoples or their country did to other countries. I do not want politicians to use tweeter so much. Neither to say kind words or hateful words. Tweets are not for serious work of solving society problems.

But they do influence, and influence can make a difference. If not through twitter, how else would/should politicians connect with people?

edit: I say this as someone who doesn't use twitter; it still seems like it has value, albeit small or insignificant at times

Re: Obama’s Charlottesville Response Most-Liked Tweet Ever

#38

This type of tweets or ideas are not useful, and they are just too easy to produce. We all know people can have nice words and hearts. That does not prevent them being indifferent to what they did to other peoples or their country did to other countries. I do not want politicians to use tweeter so much. Neither to say kind words or hateful words. Tweets are not for serious work of solving society problems.

I miss when social media was about sending messages to a cute girl you seen in class, or finding out where the party was this weekend. I really couldn't care less about Twitter, or who responds to the President's tweet with the best comeback. I thought Obama tweeting was undignified, and then Trump just took it to another level.

Re: Obama’s Charlottesville Response Most-Liked Tweet Ever

#39

This type of tweets or ideas are not useful, and they are just too easy to produce. We all know people can have nice words and hearts. That does not prevent them being indifferent to what they did to other peoples or their country did to other countries. I do not want politicians to use tweeter so much. Neither to say kind words or hateful words. Tweets are not for serious work of solving society problems.

This is missing the forest for the chirping birds. Of course a message can be useful: in times of fear, people want reassurance. That's probably why (as another top-level comment mentions) the top reactions ever on Twitter are after terror incidents.

As for how Twitter should be used, it's a communication medium. People can use it however they seem fit. Would it seem more important if the message came via telegraph, telegram, telephone? History adapted to all of those as well. "Sighted ship, sunk same", "WAR", the Zimmerman Telegram, etc.

Re: Obama’s Charlottesville Response Most-Liked Tweet Ever

#40

In times of conflict it's easy to lose sight of the fundamental goodness and decency of people, goodness and decency that will flourish if given the opportunity. Great leaders remind us of this when anger and hate pull us apart.

great leaders dont indiscriminately bomb innocent countries nonstop for 8yrs (only president to be at war entire 2 terms... EVER)

take your virtue signalling somewhere else plz

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