Watch: Michelle Obama's Advice? Don't 'Tweet Every Thought'

By Stephen Gossett in News on Nov 1, 2017 9:53PM

Michelle Obama / Obama Foundation / YouTube / Screenshot

When Michelle Obama sat down with poet Elizabeth Alexander at Day Two of the inaugural Obama global summit in Chicago, the two covered a wide terrain of topics, ranging from public-art deserts to how a child's gender influence parents' approach to childrearing. But in her long conversation, the former First Lady also got in a bit of advice about the importance of showing some social-media restraint—a not altogether unfamiliar refrain in the era of President Trump, the audience clearly registered.

Obama's pearl of wisdom came in the midst of a lengthy answer to Alexander's question about using one's voice and "how to be productive in disagreement."

"This whole 'tell it like it is' business, that's nonsense" the former First Lady said in the midst of her reply, at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago.

"You know, you don't just say what's on your mind. You don't tweet every thought," she said, drawing significant applause from the packed house.

"Most of your first initial thoughts are not worthy of the light of day. And I'm not talking about anybody in particular," she then offered diplomatically, again to plenty of cheers. "I'm talking about us all, because everybody does that."

"We are so not talking about anybody in particular," Alexander countered.

Obama then steered the talk back to a more parental focus, noting that social media "is a powerful weapon that we just hand over to little kids," but as you can tell from the crowd's response, not before everybody in the room was all too happy to read between the political lines.

You can watch the full conversation below, but the portion that's certainly not explicitly about Donald Trump's tweeting habits can be seen at around 1:06:00.