The Boston Red Sox visited the White House on Tuesday as the reigning World Series Champions. The tradition of inviting the winning team of a professional sports league or national championship for college is a little cliche at this point, but I think I am just saying that because none of my teams have ever had the opportunity to visit the POTUS. Regardless, it makes for an easy day for the media to post a couple of pictures and generic athlete quotes about how happy they are to be there, slap it together and there is your story (or lack there of).
David Ortiz decided to spice things up a bit at the White House visit by grabbing a hilarious selfie with Obama and tweeting it out. It has picked up almost 40,000 retweets and more than 45,000 favorites. Everyone had a good laugh about it, it added a little more color to the "story" of the Red Sox visit and then we continue to live our lives normally.
Today it came out that Samsung was up to its old Oscars tricks again and that this was a planned selfie by Ortiz that Obama did not actually know about beforehand. Okay, whatever. It is still a funny tweet and a good reminder that both professional athletes and the President are human beings with senses of humor. There wasn't any promotional branding in the tweet that suggested Samsung was behind this and it wasn't screaming at me to go buy a Galaxy or Note.
Well, I guess that not everyone felt the same way about it...
"Hang on. Did Samsung really use the word ‘genuine’ in its response? The moment was about as bona fide as the Grade A meat in Hot Pockets. I mean, if there is indeed any purpose of the "selfie," it’s about capturing something impromptu." - Eric Wilbur, Boston.com
"Spontaneity is dead. Samsung killed it." - Chris Cillizza, Washington Post
"Duping the president of the United States into participating with your social media campaign has to be anew low for advertising. It’s flat-out shady. And Ortiz should be embarrassed." - Joshua Green, Bloomberg
Holy shit, these are serious quotes about this? I can't actually believe that people would get this upset about it. Here's a question for them - does you think that because Ortiz did this because Samsung asked him to that it made his smile, his excitement and everything associated with the picture any less sincere? If you honestly think that, then your cynicism has reached an unhealthy height.
As I said above, Samsung wasn't in-your-face about the tweet. They didn't ask Ortiz to use any promotional branding and Ortiz didn't try to force it in there either. Sure, it is an old trick and not a terribly creative one (although, it does raise the sentiment of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'). But I don't feel duped by Samsung because of it. When I look at that picture, I see a professional athlete who is an idol to thousands of people with a smile that is ear to ear as he is with someone who is actually more recognizable than he is in public.
So I would highly recommend to anyone who is upset by this to just stop and reevaluate what is worth getting irritated about these days. Because a hilarious picture that came about of a corporate sponsorship should not be high on the list of righteous indignation triggers.
Sidenote: When has a selfie EVER been impromptu? I would argue that a selfie is honestly as far from an impromptu action as they come. For the love of god, and I hate to even have to point to the song "Selfie" but if that doesn't show that they are as calculated as they come, then I don't know what does. Please, don't age yourself like that Boston.com.
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