Michelle Obama Continues to Uphold Grace on Social Media | Vanity Fair

We’re all familiar with former first lady Michelle Obama’s “they go low, we go high” approach to dealing with nonsense attacks, political and otherwise, but it’s one thing to hear it and another to live it, especially in a world where both Donald Trump and the president of the United States are spouting off inflammatory thoughts on social media.

In the latest episode of IMO With Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, the new podcast she co-hosts with her older brother, Obama offered some tips on keeping cool in an increasingly volatile online world, with the help of Yale professor and The Happiness Lab host Dr. Laurie Santos. The episode was published on Friday, and was previously recorded live at SXSW in Austin.

When it comes to taking heat and responding with grace, Obama certainly has bonafides, as she reminded the audience. “People always ask me and Barack, how did we stay hopeful in not just the eight years that we were in the White House, but beyond, because let me tell you, there was a lot of negative energy built in our way,” she said. “A lot of rumors, a lot of gossip.”

She cited birtherism as one of those persistent gossip stories, and in that “beyond” era she referenced, the MAGA contingent just won’t let those false divorce rumors die. Plus, as Robinson pointed out, tongue firmly in cheek, there was the time that “he wore a tan suit.” Never forget.

As it turns out, Obama has a simple and effective strategy for avoiding rage-scrolling: Just don’t.

“Through it all, what kept us sane, and we tried to instill this in our daughters, is that you cannot live through social media,” she said. “I don’t think I have ever once looked at a comment section…. Period. At all, ever.”

Santos backed her up with a scientific interpretation of “catching feelings.”

“We know for sure that emotions are contagious, right? They're just like COVID,” she said. “You go into an office and you hang out with somebody who's feeling hyped up and optimistic and excited, you kind of catch that, right? You go into the same office as somebody who's down and not feeling it and you catch that too, right?”

That “office,” however, now encompasses more than a physical space.

“These days, we don’t just catch emotions from the other people who are around,” Santos said. “We have this transfer system online where folks are catching emotions globally. You know, I hop on some social media platform, I’m catching some emotion from somebody on Instagram that lives in a different country, a completely different time zone, but I catch that too. And that’s being worsened by the fact that these social media companies obviously have algorithms that thrive not on us catching each other’s positive emotions, but on catching each other’s anger and outrage and sadness, right? That’s what gets eyeballs on our phones. And so all these things together mean not just that there’s transference, but there’s particular transference of the bad stuff of hopelessness.”

A great way to not get pissed off by social media, Obama said, is to make an effort to opt out.

“I would implore young people, don’t let that negative energy enter into your space. These are people who don’t know you. A lot of this stuff is made up and it does not feed you,” she said. “That doesn't mean you don’t stay informed, but staying informed has nothing to do with the comment section.”

“We cannot get so trapped by social media that we feel so caught up into the one way we get information,” she continued. “We’ve got to broaden our spectrum, and we have to get off the phone.”

People are so wrapped up in their phones, she claimed, that she can fly commercial without getting stopped by strangers for being, you know, Michelle Obama. “I can walk right past somebody with a hat on, you know, and I’m just a Black woman in a hat.”

Robinson expressed some skepticism about his sister’s ability to fly under the radar, and put on a silly voice to echo some of the questions that he said he gets asked all the time, alluding to those same rumors: “How’s Michelle? Tell Michelle I said hi. How’s she doing? Are they OK?”

If you don’t want to delete the apps, however, Obama said she believes there’s a positive way to participate in social media, a sort of “be the change” approach.

“There’s power in it, you know. But we have to resist the notion to use it to harp on each other. To diss and to, you know, spread gossip and to, you know, I mean…each of us in our world can encourage the people within it to use the tool for good,” she said. “You can make a choice to either, you know, use these tools for good or use them for evil, or to use them to appease your frustration.”

That’s where things got a tad more pointed.

“It’s easy to get on a big platform and rile people up and to say hateful things and to make fun of people,” Obama continued. “Of course, anybody could do that. Any leader can do that. Right? That’s the easiest way to lead, because you're sort of tapping into your easiest, basest core and you lash out, you share that anger. The strength and the power comes when you can harness that and understand that if you have a platform, if you want to be on social media, that you now have an obligation not to spread hate and bitterness.”

Not that she’s naming any names of leaders who are saying those hateful things online, no sir. And that, folks, is what we call “going high.”

Gwyneth Paltrow on Fame, Raw Milk, and Why Sex Doesn’t Always Sell

How Karen Read’s Documentary Plans Backfired

Jeffrey Epstein’s Redaction Case is “All Hands on Deck”

What the New JFK Files Reveal About the CIA’s Secret

Silicon Valley’s Newfound God Complex

Fire, Controversies, Backlash: All the Drama Surrounding Snow White

The Alexander Brothers Built an Empire. Their Accusers Say the Foundation Was Sexual Violence.

The Democrat’s Rising Star Elissa Slotkin Is Fighting Trump Tooth and Nail

Meet Elon Musk’s 14 Children and Their Mothers (Whom We Know of)

The “Depressing” Luca Dončić Trade That Left a Team and City Reeling

From the Archive: Karen Read’s Fight