The Obama Reaction Set

MAY 08 2014 · 12:00

President Obama drops the mic at the 2016 White House Correspondents' Dinner, the gesture the Tumblr reaction-GIF era had been priming the political vocabulary for since 2012 Place: The West Wing, the White House Press Briefing Room, the Washington Hilton ballroom Figures: Barack Obama, 44th US President · the West Wing communications team · the Tumblr and Buzzfeed editors who cut the loops Barack Obama is the first US president whose body language gets systematically converted into reaction vocabulary at scale. The slow clap during a speech. The smile-and-look-down deflection. The late-2012 inauguration fist-bump. The 8 May 2014 mic drop at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Each becomes a GIF in heavy rotation across Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, and the long tail of group chats. The administration leans into it. The official White House Tumblr (launched 2013) sides with the hard-G pronunciation in a 2014 post (see [[wilhite-jif-2013]]). Press secretary briefings include reaction-friendly moments that look engineered for the GIF cut. The medium has reached the institution. Video: Obama's closing line at his eighth and final Correspondents' Dinner, 30 April 2016 at the Washington Hilton. Two more words, then the mic. The frame that the reaction-GIF web had been training the presidency to deliver since 2012.