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  • 2016-01-07 (xsd:date)
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  • Obama Crying Like a Psychopath Meme (en)
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  • On 5 January 2016, President Obama proposed several measures to curb gun violence while delivering remarks on the topic in the East Room of the White House. As he discussed gun deaths involving children, the President began crying (as seen at the 0:44 mark in the video embedded below): Some versions of the meme attributed its claims to Dr. Lillian Glass: A brief online search indicated that the quote cited above was lifted directly from a 6 November 2013 Business Insider article titled 7 Signs You're Working with a Psychopath. The article predictably described an entirely different context: In their original context, Dr. Glass' observations clearly pertained to video footage (not a still image). Dr. Glass' web site includes a blog wherein her observations consistently describe analysis of subjects in context and motion (utilizing photographs to illustrate the body language she described in a broader context throughout). Nowhere in her writings did we locate an example of her making such a definitive diagnosis based upon a single still image, nor of her throwing around severe diagnostic language such as psychopath. We contacted Dr. Glass regarding the meme and the use of language from her 2013 book The Body Language of Liars. Dr. Glass told us she was aware of the quote's newfound popularity and was deeply dismayed by the lengths to which her words and work had been misconstrued due to the meme (and related articles). Dr. Glass strongly repudiated the assertions of the meme, noting that the quote originally appeared in her 2013 book and was used for the Business Insider piece in a very different context. Moreover, she stated that she would never engage in body language analysis so flippantly, nor did she consider the subject matter of the meme appropriate for such observations. Mostly, Dr. Glass was dismayed at the virality of a grossly misconstrued, unrelated, out-of-context quote from her book in a meme that misrepresented her work. We asked psychologist Dr. Emily Perrine-Gifford about the claims; she explained why the armchair diagnoses of social media made little sense to mental health clinicians: According to Dr. Glass, the thrust of the meme is unequivocally false. Whether folks believe President Obama's tears at the 5 January 2016 appearance were legitimate or not, the meme based on that moment in no way represents the analytical work of the body language expert to whom it is attributed. (en)
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