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Explainer: How Twitter went into meltdown over Obama's choice of suit
AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
BARACK OBAMA APPEARED in the press briefing room in the White House yesterday to discuss the economy, Iraq and Ukraine before meeting with his national security team to talk about the militant threat in Syria and Iraq.
Oh, he also wore a tan coloured suit.
And that’s all anyone could talk about.
According to the Washington Post ‘political Twitter had a mini meltdown over the suit’, with thousand of tweets about the sartorial choice lighting up timelines. Before long #tansuit and #YesWeTan were trending.
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Twitter analytics gizmo Topsy presents a fairly clear view of the jump in interest in tweets about ‘Obama suit’ yesterday. Of the 21,000 odd tweets sent in the past month containing the words ‘obama’ and ‘suit’, around 18,000 were sent in the past day.
Topsy Topsy
More than 4,000 tweets about the suit were sent during the press conference alone.
USA Today’s Washington Bureau Chief even got an official line on it from a White House official:
Before long a different hashtag began to emerge… #TanSuitGate, as backlash over the coverage of an interest in Obama’s choice of clothes rather than the serious issues at hand began.
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If you’re wondering what Obama was talking about while wearing the tan suit, he said of Ukraine:
And of ISIS in Syria:
Obama told reporters, explaining that the US did not “have to choose” between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Islamic State jihadist fighters.
The full press conference is here:
Obama: “It’s plain to see Russia is arming rebels in Ukraine”>
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tansuit yes we tan