Typical Internet—President Obama joins Twitter, and the biggest controversy is over who he doesn’t follow.
This morning, @POTUS entered the Twittersphere, and immediately brought out the Everyman charm:
Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account.
— President Obama (@POTUS44) May 18, 2015
A White House press release further dispelled fears that this was a parody account.
“The @POTUS Twitter account will serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him,” the release said.
The president will also “engage directly” by joining the rest of the world and using an iPhone to tweet. (Mr. Obama still uses a hacker-proof Blackberry complete with NSA protections for official correspondence).
But forget all that—what people really seem to care about is who Mr. Obama followed.
Among the lucky 65 accounts followed by @POTUS are First Lady Michelle Obama, VIce President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry. Mr. Obama also follows his alma maters Harvard and Columbia.
But even though Mr. Obama followed most sports teams in his native Chicago (the Blackhawks, Bulls, Bears and White Sox), the Cubs were not on the list.
The baseball team sent out a sassy tweet in response:
@POTUS We're big fans of America. Just saying. #YouMissedATeam
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) May 18, 2015
It seems the “Social Media President” is not as savvy as he first seemed.
