With under 100 days until the US elections, candidates are ramping up their social media presence in hopes of catching the votes of the younger crowd. As we can already tell, Obama does tend to do a bit better in terms of social media than Mitt Romney as well as other candidates running for presidency. Today, Obama is hosting an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit, a popular social site that lets users talk about pretty much anything via forum-like posts.
One interesting thing about this AMA is the fact that the President is hosting it from the University of Virginia’s library. Why is this interesting? Reddit was created in the exact same place. Alexis Ohanian, the creator of Reddit, recently said the following about Obama’s AMA when he was interviewed by the Washington Post:
I was sitting in [the University of Virginia’s] Alderman Library when I came up with the name ‘Reddit,’ and I never could’ve imagined that seven years later, the president of the United States would be using it — let alone from the same place!
So, how are Reddit’s servers taking the extra load from the President’s AMA? Not well. The site is still down for some users including myself, but if you want to give it a shot, you can read the President’s AMA here.
Another interesting fact? Obama is pictured running the AMA from his MacBook Pro. So next time someone on Reddit tells you that no one uses a Mac, send them this article.
Source: Washington Post, Reddit
