President George W. Bush’s twin daughters are offering advice to Malia and Sasha Obama, who are soon to join them in the ranks of former first kids…
They said they had more advice now that the Obamas are moving into a new chapter of their lives…
This is not the first time the sisters have written a letter to the Obama children: A similar note of encouragement was published in the Wall Street Journal in 2009.
(CNN, January 13, 2017)
I appreciate that nothing is too private for Twitterers, Facebookers, and Instagrammers who crave attention the way junkies crave drugs.
But you’d have thought the Bush daughters were still recovering from the overdose of attention they “suffered” during the twelve years their grandfather served as vice president of the United States (1980-88) and president (1988-92), and the eight years their father served as president (2000-08).
Therefore, their relapse is surprising, even disheartening. They would have you think it was mentoring of them to welcome Malia and Sasha into their ranks by publishing their so-called “heartfelt” notes of encouragement. But Barbara and Jenna knew full well that they were only drawing media attention to themselves.
Which is why the only thing that explains this public sharing of their personal advice for the Obama daughters is the social pathology I’ve been decrying for years:
A selfie is not just about adoring one’s own reflection like Narcissus; it’s also about taking a picture of that reflection to publish for all the world to see. But am I the only one who rues the cognitive dissonance that has turned self-obsessed showoffs from laughingstocks into standard-bearers of what is now not only acceptable but required public behavior?
You’d never know, for example, that just years ago any self-respecting man would be mortified if he were caught checking himself out in the mirror. Now the Internet is littered with as many selfies of preening men as women. But nothing irritates me in this context quite like the way people convey every private sentiment — from condolences to birthday greetings and romantic love — only by tweeting, facebooking, or instagramming it for everyone to read/see.
(“Introduction,” The iPINIONS Journal, Vol. IX, p. xxi, 2014)
Frankly, I would be shocked if Barbara and Jenna even bothered to share their (selfie) note with Malia and Sasha before publishing it for the world to read (or, to be more precise, to “Like”).
I would be even more shocked if the Obama daughters emulate the Bush daughters by publishing similar notes of encouragement to Trump’s son, Barron. For, even if they saw some value in penning such a note, I’d like to think Malia and Sasha are too classy to make it all about them by publishing it.