Obama used ‘selfie stick’ once before

President Obama’s viral video for HealthCare.gov wasn’t his first time handling a “selfie stick.”

While Obama’s viral BuzzFeed video promoting the ObamaCare website was the first public instance of him using the device, he said he first encountered the tool far away from Washington.

“Actually, the first time I used that was when we were in Hawaii for vacation,” Obama said during a lengthy interview with Re/code’s Kara Swisher. 

White House photographer Pete Souza had a GoPro camera during the trip and “folks were starting to use selfie sticks,” Obama said.

The first family’s most recent Christmas vacation to Hawaii in December involved Obama playing golf, visiting with Pearl Jam rocker Eddie Vedder, snorkeling and eating shaved ice.

In an effort to boost health insurance sign-ups before the latest enrollment deadline, Obama shot a video released last week where he was seen posing with a selfie stick, putting out his tongue to imitate an emoji and playing some air ball. 

The video was part of a broader Obama administration campaign to ratchet up promotion of HealthCare.gov ahead of the Feb. 15 enrollment deadline.

Since it was posted Feb. 12, the selfie-stick video has been viewed on Facebook nearly 50 million times. 

Obama and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Burwell announced late Tuesday that about 11.4 million people had signed up or renewed their coverage by the latest enrollment deadline, including more than a million people in the final nine days. 

The total eclipsed a lowered target set by the administration late last year.