Stop Snitching on Malia Obama

On Saturday, The Daily Mail published photos that reportedly show 20-year-old Malia Obama drinking rosé with friends in Miami. The tabloid wanted you to know how bad it felt this was, with the headline: “Rosé all day: Under-age Malia Obama is spotted sipping on an $80 bottle of wine with three friends at Miami Beach pool party.” The following day, it published a piece claiming that Obama had a secret Facebook account, which features anti-Trump sentiments. (Which, same?)

This attempt at salaciousness is par for the course for the publication that leans right and has been obsessed with Obama for years:

And years:

And years:

And years:

And years:

The children of presidents have never been off limits: Chelsea Clinton was mocked relentlessly by right-wingers and comedians. The Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara, gained party girl notoriety after trying to use fake IDs to buy alcohol. And Malia and Sasha Obama, as the first black first daughters, have faced a combination of tabloid fixation on their personal lives and racist bullshit: in 2014, a Republican communications director resigned after suggesting that the then-teenage sisters were scantily clad and disrespectful during the annual Thanksgiving turkey-pardoning.

But with the modern ubiquity of cameras and social surveillance basically becoming a form of recreation, the Obama daughters are uniquely vulnerable to these invasions of privacy. She’s surrounded by narcs, essentially—from cab drivers to Ivy League assholes—who are happy to sell-out this famous private citizen to the vultures happy to smear or try to embarrass her for clicks.

Don’t be a weirdo: stop snitching on Malia Obama, a normal 20-year-old who seemed to turn out pretty great considering all the shit she’s seen. If you see her in public, maybe tell the group chat, not the tabloids.