Watching Twistory Unfold

As I write this, I am reading the collected speeches of President Woodrow Wilson, shopping for a USB to SATA or IDE adapter cable...and enjoying President Obama's Cairo speech live over Twitter, courtesy of the White House's official Twitter profile.

I've said from the get-go that I love Twitter. As a humble member of the hoi polloi, Twitter allows me to rub elbows with those I might not otherwise be able to meet. It also gives the political junkie in me the ability to watch government officials from both parties happily Tweet away, location be damned, as this February 25th article from CNN shows.

What really struck me about this morning, though, was that instead of actually turning on the TV to watch the address, instead of going somewhere on the internet to see the live video broadcast, instead of using an online audio stream, I followed along with President Obama over social media...and that, ladies and gentlemen, is watching history unfold.

As an historian, I often don't feel those historical moments come and go. I'm too stuck in the past to notice history as it's being made here in the present. Somehow though, I got the message today.

Unlike the President's previous speeches, to which the White House's Twitter account provides links, someone sat and Twittered passages of President Obama's speech as he uttered them, and I read along. Not since FDR started bombarding the radio, and Kennedy started asking for television broadcasts, has such an untapped social media been put to this kind of use. I'm looking forward to watching future uses of it by the White house.

As a side not, I found this all very exciting, but it left me wondering how past presidents might have used Twitter.

Wilson, who wrote all his own speeches (as well as many books), would probably like Twitter a lot. He liked to write, wrote well, and was all about being in control of his situation. I think he would've used the medium to make his points and sprinkle his witticisms. He often longed to be loved by the people, and this might have given him the chance.

FDR, I suspect, would use Twitter very differently. Rather than for politics, I suspect we would see a lot of pictures from his family gatherings, and updates about what he was doing. He liked to bond with people, and the people loved him. Twitter offers a way to seem close to people without having to BE close to them.

New Camelot...?

Despite unceasing comparisons to FDR, I find that the Obamas remind me a lot more of the Kennedys than the Roosevelts. It's not that President Obama doesn't have his FDR-ish political traits, he does, but in terms of mainstream, pop culture marketing, I'm forcibly reminded of the Kennedys.

I have to confess, it creeps me out a little to walk through Wal-Mart and see a score of Obama books and memoriabilia staring me in the face. Although I've seen plenty of books about President Bush, I can't recall encountering a commemorative plate sporting his visage while walking through a megastore. Maybe that's just me...?

I think the key to this is 'pop culture'. I know it's not unusual for Franklin Mint-style items to be issued and sold during a presidency - coins, plates, etc. In fact, I imagine there must be an enthusiastic market for them (says the girl who owns enough Woodrow Wilson and FDR goods to sink a small tanker), but I think this kind of mass-marketing issuance is comparitively rare.

When I was a teenager, I was helping my step-dad with something out in our garage and we somehow came upon a JFK coloring book of his, which fascinated me. I couldn't recall ever seeing or owning a Ronald Reagan coloring book, not George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton, either. What was so special about JFK that he rated a kids' coloring book and Reagan memorbilia extended mostly to the usual Halloween mask, or Christmas ornament, or the occasional trading card? By contrast, Kennedy had a couple sets of trading cards devoted to him, not to mention the faboo coloring book.

There is a popular perception of the Obamas as glamorous and elegant, and I think it's that perception which gives them their pop culture success, a la the Camelot era Kennedys. They're young, well-to-do, hip and stylish: Barack uses Twitter, Michelle was on The View.

This is not to say that the Roosevelts didn't have their own brand of mainstream fame - the public reveled in their private lives as much as the public revels in the private lives of any of today's big stars, but I really think that, for the Obamas, the tone of that public infatuation is closer to the Kennedys.