Michelle Obama says, in this week's Variety magazine, that she's a "product of pop culture. I’m a consumer of pop culture, and I know what resonates with people." The first lady is on the cover of the magazine, and in the cover story, she focuses on how she's successfully used pop culture to drive her initiatives like Let Girls Learn.
From performing in James Corden's "Carpool Karaoke" segment to pushing Billy on the Streets around in a grocery cart, Obama has never been one to shy away from making people laugh. And she said it was part of her goal when she took on the role of first lady.
"My goal was reaching people where they lived on a day-to-day basis, and the next step was, ‘How do you do that? Where are the people?’ Well, they’re not reading the op-ed pieces in the major newspapers. They’re not watching Sunday morning news talk shows. They’re doing what most people are doing: They are watching TV.”
She adds: “A lot of our audiences are kids and teens, and they want to be in on the joke. And they’ll listen again. We’re just a little looser with this stuff than most traditional first ladies.”
“Looser” is definitely an understatement. When was the last time you saw a first lady bust out the Whip/Nae Nae?
“I view myself as being the average woman,” she says. “While I am first lady, I wasn’t first lady my whole life. I’m a product of pop culture. I’m a consumer of pop culture, and I know what resonates with people. I know what they’ll get a chuckle out of and what they think is kind of silly. And whenever my team approaches me with ideas and concepts, we’re usually like, ‘Is this really funny? Are people going to understand it?’”
There's one thing that's certain: Melania Trump might be able to copy a speech, but she'll never be able to duplicate Michelle Obama's personality.