Texts From Hillary

About

Texts From Hillary is a single topic blog featuring a series of vertical, multi-pane image macros based on a photograph of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton^[1] sitting aboard a military aircraft while wearing sunglasses and checking her phone.

Origin

The picture of Hilary Clinton was taken by Reuters photographer Kevin Lamarque while she was awaiting departure aboard a military C-17 Globemaster III^[2] flight from Malta to Tripoli, Libya on October 18th, 2011. The photograph was subsequently featured on the news site^[3] on October 20th, 2011. Another photo taken from a different angle was posted online on October 27th, 2011 as a part of a TIME photo essay^[4] on White House photographer Diana Walker and her travel with the Secretary of State for a cover story^[5] that appeared in the November 7th, 2011 issue of the magazine.

The blog Texts From Hilary was created by friends Adam Smith^[6] and Stacy Lambe^[7] who both work in public relations in Washington, D.C. On April 4th, 2012, the first image was posted to to the Tumblr^[8], featuring Clinton’s photo paired with one of Obama texting. Within two days, the post received 9094 notes.

Spread

Buzzfeed Politics^[13] was the first site to feature photos from the blog on April 5th. This was followed by coverage on several news sites including the International Business Times^[14], the Washington Post^[15], the Huffington Post^[16], and Yahoo! News^[17] as well as on web culture site Uproxx.^[18] That afternoon, Adam Smith tweeted^[9] a confirmation that he and Stacy Lambe were responsible for the blog. They also began a Twitter account^[10] for the blog, both to post links to the images and to collect press coverage.

After Smith’s tweet, Mashable^[19] published his comments on the blog’s creation, noting that they came up with the idea after a few drinks one night. Coverage continued the next day with articles published on MSNBC^[20] and Mediaite.^[21] Other Tumblr users began posting their own images with the tag “Texts From Hillary.”^[22] A second blog, Texts from Hilary (sic) from Last Night^[23], was started on the 5th posting image macros in the vein of the 2009 blog Texts From Last Night

On the morning of April 6th, the president of digital media agency Engage DC^[11] tweeted^[12] that Texts from HIllary had been shared on Facebook 46,100 times resulting in 172,054 likes or comments.

Hillary Clinton’s Response

On the afternoon of April 9th, a member of Clinton’s staff contacted Lambe and Smith stating that the Secretary of State loved their blog and wanted to meet the creators.^[25] The three met up at the State Department Tuesday, April 10th, the same day in which a Clinton submitted post^[24] was published on the site. She gave Lambe and Smith autographed copies of the post she made as well.

Notable Examples

External References