Selfie Politics

It’s one of the most symbolic photos of the 2016 U.S presidential campaign – hundreds of people, mostly women, standing with their backs to the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.

This is no act of protest, however. In fact, Hillary doesn’t appear offended in the slightest. Quite the opposite, she’s smiling and waving. The fact is that in 2016, one of the most recognized signs of admiration is turning your back on someone. Provided that you have, of course, a mobile phone in your hand and that you’re taking a photo with that person. A selfie. Or for those who wish to preserve the essence of Spanish, an “autofoto” (the literal, non-Anglicized Spanish translation for selfie).

The image was captured last Saturday in Orlando, Florida. Clinton was attending a voter registration event, where unlike in Spain, registering to vote in the U.S isn’t an automatic procedure. It was there that the idea was first formed. Around 500 of Clinton’s followers were present at the event, too many to take a photo with each person individually. A selfie was the best solution.

“It was one of those moments that just organically comes together,” said the photo’s author Barbara Kinney, Clinton’s official campaign photographer and the woman behind the picture’s popularity. On Sunday, Kinney uploaded the photo to Twitter, and by Monday it had already been retweeted more than 10,000 times.

The truth is that the U.S presidential campaign, despite its one media star (Donald Trump) and its one political star (Clinton), has generated very few images to remember. It’s paradoxical. But more paradoxical yet is the fact that Trump, for the showman he is, hasn’t produced a single good photo or selfie to date. In reality, the businessman prefers to keep his distance from others during meetings.

This has meant free rein for Hillary, whose campaign team is well aware of the importance of social media and modern communication methods. A selfie is the best way to connect with an audience which lacks both the time and the energy to delve into discussions on America’s commercial deficit with China, a topic on which Trump has spoken considerably.

Cue the selfie. Like when Kim Kardashian posted a shot of herself with Hillary in August. Behind them, the celebrity’s husband and hip-hop singer Kanye West is “photobombing” the pair – the action of spoiling a photo by appearing in the background without being noticed. On balance, it was a very well thought-out picture, reaching a total of 75 million people via Kim (48 million followers) and Kanye’s (27.2 million followers) separate Twitter accounts. Many of which weren’t actively following the development of the world’s toughest election campaign.

It’s photo politics through the use of the mobile phone. Let’s take attractive Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who inadvertently photobombed a wedding this August appearing topless amongst a group of people celebrating on the beach. However, the selfie king of world politics isn’t a Western politician, but Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, who uses selfies as a basis on which to govern and has even implored citizens to take selfies in order to combat discrimination against women. In the near future, politicians will be taking selfies instead of giving speeches, and people everywhere will simply stop talking to each other. Instead, we’ll post pictures of ourselves on social media. We’ll turn our backs on one another and see each other only through the medium of our mobile phones.