President Selfie No Longer a Fan ofSelfies

“Folks just have their phones, they don’t want to shake my hand anymore."

6.27.2016

President Obama is putting away his selfie stick and declaring his love affair with selfies over.

No longer is he okay with people turning their backs to him to grab a quick snap of him in the background, a phenomenon he says now happens all over the world.

“Folks just have their phones, they don’t want to shake my hand anymore," Obama lamented this year at a fundraiser. "It's like, 'Hey, I'm here, live, in front of you!"

Yet the selfie has been a staple for the Obama administration. The president actually used his own selfie stick at Glacier National Park. First Lady Michelle Obama regularlyuses selfies to advertise her many hashtag campaigns. In fact, a year ago, the White House lifted a 40-year photo ban, allowing visitors to act like the president and take pictures of themselves inside the residence.

The Washington Post has dedicated an entire article about the president's loss of interest in the social medium, despite the multiple times Obama has obliged as is listed in the piece: BuzzFeed's Obamacare push featuring a very selfie-centric president, for example, and Obama and Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz posing for a selfie in celebration of the team's victory at the White House. Who could forget this rather controversial selfie: Obama flanked by Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and British PM David Cameron snapping a pic at Nelson Mandela's memorial, no less, with an angry-looking Mrs. Obama in the background (seen above).

FLOTUS has said since 2014, "I don't like selfies," but continues to take them. Even after the president declared his disdain for them this year, it took only a day before he was posing for another with Ellen DeGeneres on her daytime talk show. She entitled that one, "Selfie with the Chief," and posted it to Instagram.

As they say, old habits die hard. Besides, consistency isn't a key trait with the Obama administration.