Twitter Reacts To Obama's Selfie With Alaskan Mom And Daughter

Twitter erupted into a frenzy after multiple pictures of former President Barack Obama with an Alaskan woman and her six-month-old daughter took the internet by storm. The mother, Jolene Jackinsky, told Associated Press she was searching for an airline at the Anchorage International Airport on Monday when she chanced upon a waiting area for private flights and thought a man inside looked like the 44th president.

“As I got closer, I thought: Oh my God, it is Obama,” Jackinsky said adding: “I didn't know what to do!” While she remained stunned, Obama walked up to the mother and the daughter and started a conversation saying, “Who is this pretty girl?” referring to Jackinsky’s daughter, Giselle Harried.

“He walked toward us, asked her name and wanted to know where we were going," said Jackinsky. Obama told her that he was passing through the airport on his home adding that he had just finished a vacation. “Two men with the Secret Service were there too”, Jackinsky said.

According to Alaska Dispatch News, Jackinsky grew up in Newhalen in the Bristol Bay region, an area Obama visited last year on his whirlwind tour of the state. On Monday, Jackinsky was heading home to see family and put up subsistence fish in the Southwest Alaska area, something Obama tried his hand at last year. But their five-minute conversation was apparently focused on kids.

"He talked about how fast kids grow up," she said. "He said his daughter is going to college pretty soon. He asked if I had a phone to take pictures and did a selfie with us." According to reports, when Eric Harried, her boyfriend and the baby's father, walked in, Obama also joked that he was stealing the baby.

Many on Twitter started gushing over the selfie, with most calling the baby and Obama ‘cute’. While some took the opportunity to tweet about how much they missed him, others claimed wistfully that they wished it was them in the picture with Obama instead of the baby.

Meanwhile, some criticized the former president saying he was obsessed with selfies. Few even brought up previous instances where Obama was seen clicking pictures with a selfie stick. Some remembered the infamous picture he had taken at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in 2013. In pictures which emerged capturing the moment, Denmark's Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt appeared to hold out her smartphone for a three-way selfie in Johannesburg while Obama, who sat to her left, and British Prime Minister David Cameron, who sat to her right, leaned in close for the snap.

While most gushed about the baby in the selfie, some started speculating whether all was well in Obama’s marriage after an article appeared pointing out that his wedding ring was missing from his finger as he held the girl.

However, the article appears to be baseless as the former president was previously seen taking off his wedding ring while shaking hands with crowds in order to protect it.