Goodbye, selfie diplomacy, leaders need to get back to business

It’s high time that people close to global political leaders take them aside gently and break the news: the age of selfie diplomacy has officially jumped the shark. Gone are the days when a cleverly-timed selfie could save a floundering election campaign, or make a leader seem more relatable to her constituents, or a national leader turn into a statesman.

But selfies are not just passe, they are now tedious and boring. Besides, it’s become literally bad optics along the lines of photobombing. Who looks good under those harsh, unflattering conference room lights, forced smiles and awkward angles, enforced hugs, especially when taken by folks not quite equipped with Cartier-Bresson aesthetics?

What used to be a novel way to show humility and ‘I take selfies just like you’ now looks a bit desperate, in an age where if a PM or prez behaves like a Kardashian, it gets little mileage.

We want those stiff, awkward handshakes and formal photo ops back. The highly-paid PR teams of these leaders should stop taking us for granted and cook up something new to grab our fleeting attention spans, a new trend that doesn’t involve forced smiles and poor lighting.

For a change, they can push leaders to be a bit more radical – put their phones down and sort out this messy world. Then, we won’t need a selfie to prove that something important happened.