Though he may lack the Twitter following of his tech-obsessed Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, President Vladimir Putin was social media star over the weekend, as made the rounds on the Internet.
The picture of an unidentified boy and Putin was published on multiple Twitter accounts on Saturday, though the circumstances behind the photo remain unclear.
Pictures taken of oneself from a cell phone, known as "selfies," have enjoyed a massive uptick in legitimacy in recent months, as Oxford English Dictionaries announced that the slang was Word of the Year for 2013.
Though some may see Putin's photo as making him more relatable to Moscow's iPhone-toting creative class, the president should be aware that the process of selfie-taking is fraught with political danger. U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron were lambasted in the press after being caught squeezing together for a photo with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
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