The president of the United States was snapped committing what some call a funeral faux pas during Nelson Mandela's memorial service.
President Barack Obama was photographed taking a selfie with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and British PM David Cameron at the somber event , The Washington Post reported.
Go here to see the photo.
The three smiled for a smartphone while sitting next to a serious-faced Michelle Obama, who isn't smiling in circulated photos from the event at the FNB stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Other images show Obama laughing with Thorning-Schmidt and touching her arm, then becoming serious.
The two world leaders have met officially at least twice before, according to the Post. Thorning-Schmidt, who has daughters close to Malia and Sasha Obama's age, visited the White House in February to discuss economic policy and the Syrian situation with the president.
George W. Bush had a selfie moment as well, posting a photo of himself and Bono on Instagram about an hour after Obama's photo was noticed.
Obama's selfie snap went viral on Twitter, where users sounded off on the inappropriate moment, the New York Daily News reported.
selfies at funerals, world leader version. RT @BuzzFeedBen: Danish PM gets a selfie w Obama and Cameron https://t.co/b6goKHnSAG
— colin horgan (@cfhorgan) December 10, 2013
Obama took a selfie like some teenage girl at Nelson Mandela's memorial service. Let that sink in that he's in charge of our country... — Parker Roth (@DILFparkerroth4) December 10, 2013
Danish PM - "Selfie with Mr President" Obama - "Hell yeah" Cameron - "Let me get in on this" Michelle - "Oh Hell No" pic.twitter.com/fPA5CkzyhG
— Alex James Duckett (@aduckey) December 10, 2013
The selfie is having a field day--it was named the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year last month. Funeral selfies in particular have been the subject of controversy after attention was drawn to a certain Tumblr page titled "Selfies at Funerals."
The Tumblr page, which is apparently a closed project with no more updates planned, responded to the Obama selfie almost immediately with a post called "Obama Has Taken a Funeral Selfie, So Our Work Here Is Done."
The post includes the now-famous photo of Obama, Thorning-Schmidt and Cameron and reads, "this just happened at Nelson Mandela's memorial service--not exactly a funeral, to be fair, but I'll just go ahead and take credit for the whole thing."
According to Emily Post, the final stand for etiquette in an informal age, selfies at funerals are never OK.
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