Last month, photos and video surfaced online that appeared to show Malia Obama smoking pot at the Lollapalooza music festival.
For reasons that remain unclear, the idea of an 18-year-old recent high school grad getting stoned sparked (no pun intended) some intense debates on social media.
Some claimed Malia was smoking a cigarette, not a joint.
Others pointed out that as far as her health is concerned, the revelation that she’s hooked on Marbs like her father used to be would be far more troubling than the idea of her puffing the occasional doobie.
(We like to throw around slang sometimes to prove how “down” we are with the kids. Do kids still say “down”?)
Anyway, there are lots of people out there who are super pissed off about Malia enjoying her gap year between high school and Harvard, but they’re not exactly sure why they’re so outraged.
Some have even tried to turn this into “a thing” by throwing it back to the days when her father was a smoker, claiming that the Obamas are part of some “making smoking cool again” conspiracy.
Obviously, that’s idiotic, but new photos of Malia have some scratching their heads as to whether the 18-year-old is sending a sincere message, or taking a sarcastic jab at her haters.
The pics show Malia wearing what appears to be a homemade shirt that reads, “Smoking kills.”
It’s unclear if this was meant as a joke or an attempt to set a good example for her young admirers in the wake of her recent mini-scandal, but it’s certainly a head-scratching fashion statement.
As for those pics of President Obama gunnin’ cigs in his Chicago badass days, well, who cares, right?
Does the young future prez look cool. Kinda.
Does that mean smoking is cool? Hell no.
Look, we all know that just because something occasionally looks cool, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is.
Jumping over ten flaming school buses on a motorcycle looks cool, but it’s still something that you should never even contemplate doing in real life.
Politics aside, in terms of presidential coolness, Obama is up in the top five alongside Teddy Roosevelt (the guy had a pet bear), Franklin Pierce (underrated BAMF), and George W. Bush.
(We know. But the guy got a DUI in Texas in the ’70s. No easy feat.)
That said, we’re sure Obama has impressed upon his daughters that taking up smoking in 2016, with everything we now know about its many detrimental effects on one’s health is one of the least cool things one can do.
Also, in the interest of covering our asses legally, we should remind you that we say much of this in jest, and it is not actually cool to get a DUI in Texas in the ’70s.
So if you get your hands on a time traveling Delorean and a case of Billy Beer and things go awry, don’t go pointing the finger at us.