Last week, YouTube announced it would host a series of interviews with President Barack Obama and popular YouTube creators Bethany Mota, Glozell Green and Hank Green. While many expected the set of interviews to be a set of softball questions, the series of conversations ended up revealing some key ideas about Obama's policies.
In the hours before the interview, conservative outlets mocked the interview series, asking why a musician, a fashion blogger and a comedian were asked to interview the president, but members of the White House press and the prime minister of Israel weren't. Most critiques focused on Glozell Green's history, as she had done a number of absurd comedy sketches, including the cinnamon challenge, swimming in cereal and many others (without noting that Glozell has a history of promoting politics before). Glenn Beck expressed on his radio show that he thought Obama's decision to be interviewed by Green is evidence that "Obama is a fool" and that it destroyed the White House's reputation.
However, the 90-minute series of interviews ended up spawning a lot of interesting and new information from Obama.
Hank Green focused on Obamacare and marijuana. He was able to get Obama to admit that more states are likely to legalize marijuana in the wake of Colorado and Washinton, D.C.'s recent choices.
Glozell Green poked Obama about his Cuba policy, asking why the U.S. could support working with Cuba's leading family, the Castros, who, according to Glozell, "put the d--k in dictatorship." She was also able to get Obama to comment again on the recent racial issues.
Mota also had some success, since she was the first to ask Obama about how he was trying to help limit the death and destruction caused by Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Now, many of these questions had been answered before by Obama. But the fact that these young creators were able to get answers from Obama on issues like marijuana legalization, the Castros and Boko Haram showed that the endeavor was not a failure or a waste of time. As Mediaite noted, "Even people who give makeup tips to teenagers and eat cereal out of a bathtub are also capable of conducting insightful interviews with the president."
