YouTube stars quiz Obama

A bubbly shopping guide, a charitable "internetainerpreneur" and a comedian who wears green lipstick and eats ladles of cinnamon quizzed US President Barack Obama Thursday in a series of unorthodox YouTube presidential interviews.

Bethany Mota, Hank Green and GloZell Green—video bloggers who between them have received more than 1.5 billion views on YouTube—were invited to talk to Obama about his recent State of the Union address.

For this year's address, the US administration put a new emphasis on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to try and send the president's new policy initiatives to a broader audience.

Obama has in the past been interviewed on YouTube, and frequently used social networks—without the filter of the mainstream media.

Questions over legalizing marijuana as well as one that asked "what did you want to be when you grow up?" gave a sense of the tone of the interviews that ranged between irreverent and flattering.

Obama also faced questions over the use of drone strikes to kill terror suspects, cyber bullying, censorship in China and human rights in North Korea.

It was not always smooth sailing.

Asking about Cuba's brother leaders Fidel and Raul Castro—the self-styled "Queen of YouTube" GloZell noted they "put the 'dick' in dictator," leaving Obama to look on.

GloZell was later mortified after giving Obama tubes of green lipstick for, she said his "first wife" before correcting herself to say "First Lady."

© 2015 AFP