Videos and photos of Hillary Clinton do what videos and photos of everything do: they weirdly flatten and foreshorten the three-dimensional world. Critics with an eye on optics often claim that Clinton seems cold, robotic, and that there’s just something people don’t like about her. I’m convinced by the feminist reply that says Clinton’s speaking style challenges our expectations of how women should act and speak, and so if there’s something that you just don’t like about her way of politicking, beyond policy, then it’s probably that. But I think the camera’s flattening ways contributes to the perception of her flat character.
I’d never actually seen Clinton speak in person before her rally Tuesday night at Rainier Beach High School (go Vikings!). Seeing her in the flesh…well…presented a more fleshed out version of the candidate. She seemed warmer, nimbler, funnier. When the mic dropped out she joked and blamed gremlins, readjusted, and pressed on without one.
But, a little tragically, the thing that wowed me the most about Clinton’s presence was her incredibly efficient and well-managed selfie-taking system.
Here’s how it worked. After her speech, Clinton stepped off the stage. Security surrounded her and formed a circular barrier. Screaming people held out their phones to her. And then, in one fluid motion, Clinton would grab a phone from a supporter’s hand, frame the selfie, turn off flash, tap the persons face to focus the camera on them, snap the photo, hand it back to the now trembling supporter, and then move on to the next outstretched hand. Boom. Boom. Boom. She did like 20 of them in a minute and a half. So quick. So gracefull. So managerial. She was just as good with an Android as she was with an iPhone. She was compatible across all platforms. I couldn’t stop watching.
The effect of taking this selfie with supporters—instead of only shaking a hand or kissing a baby on the cheek—is easy to understate. But when you see girls and young women staring at their selfie with the Secretary of State and fanning themselves as if they were staring at a heartthrob in a teen movie, it’s hard not to see each one of those selfies as secured votes.
Though Clinton’s selfie game is, like everything an expert politician does, a transparent and hyper-controlled appeal to a particular voting bloc—in this case, millennials, who she’s struggling to reach—her facility with phones and supporters seemed so human, somehow part of what natural charm Clinton possesses. I’ve only seen two or three political rallies this go-round (Bernie’s and Rand Paul’s), and while they were fine with taking photos, neither of their selfie games were as strong as Clinton’s.
