vulture lists

The 8 Best Memes of the Obama Presidency

President Barack Obama has left the White Firm with a complex legacy. He's a Nobel Prize winner who presided over the rise of drone warfare. He was the land'due south starting time blackness president during years of stunning racial strife. He reformed the health-care system and celebrated the victory of same-sex marriage, still he couldn't shut Guantanamo Bay or rein in the surveillance state, and now risks seeing his achievements unraveled by the Trump administration.

We're non here to talk about any of that, though. Instead, let'southward suspension to remember the moments that will be lost in the long-term analysis of Obama's presidency: the memes. From #ThanksObama to the Thanksgiving turkey pardon, these viral jokes have played a surprising role in the past eight years. With that in heed, here are the almost memorable — and totally, utterly nonpolitical — of the many Obama memes.

1. Functioning Fly Impale
In 2009, America was still discovering how President Obama differed from Campaign Obama. It was during an otherwise unremarkable Tv set interview that nosotros defenseless a glimpse of his otherworldly focus and killer instinct. Annoyed past the intrusion of a common housefly during a conversation with CNBC's John Harwood, Obama went completely still as it landed on him, so nailed information technology with a swat. Although he and so made a show of immediately reclaiming his unruffled demeanor, Obama was proud enough to make sure the camera crew zoomed in on the fly'south corpse.

PETA wasn't happy about the impromptu "execution," but that didn't stop Obama from killing again.

two. "Thanks, Obama"
This involves but a bit of partisan politics, only it's too essential to ignore. First tweeted by @herdwatching in September 2009, "#ThanksObama" would become the sneer adopted by conservatives who blamed Obama for whatever they deemed unsatisfactory in the world at big. There'due south nothing novel about blaming your president for hardships large or small, and soon plenty, liberals applied a second layer of sarcasm to this viral complaint, using the phrase when anything went at all awry — including weather condition and Mondays.

via GIPHY

The president himself has been known to poke fun at the concept of his universal culpability, and gave the joke a os-dry delivery when his giant cookie didn't fit in a glass of milk.

As Obama's time in office wound down, even so, #ThanksObama inverse yet again. This time, supporters earnestly used the phrase to show their gratitude after his eight years in the White Firm. Even Stephen Colbert couldn't aid himself from slipping in one last #ThanksObama.

three. Malia and Sasha's oh-so-teenage reactions to the turkey pardon
Being a teenage girl ain't easy. Being the teenage daughter of the commander-in-chief? Nightmare. So information technology's understandable why Malia and Sasha grew rather, uh, disenchanted with the White Firm'due south annual Thanksgiving turkey pardon, a bizarre bit of dad sense of humor that calls for the president to save a few birds from their fate on the dining-room table. Sure, the Obama kids laughed the first year, simply past 2011, they were casting noticeable side-center at the stunt. By 2014, their obvious sheer contempt for this political theater served as a principal class in adolescent pessimism.

In November 2016, the siblings finally skipped the turkey ritual birthday. Obama had to bring in his much younger nephews to witness the honors — which, in fairness, are pretty silly.

4. The Baller-in-Chief
Obama wasn't yet in the Oval Function when he made it known how hard he goes in the paint: He was fine-tuning his jump shot before gym rallies on the 2008 campaign trail. Y'all could write a whole volume about what happened on the White Firm basketball game court — which was actually a lawn tennis court earlier Obama had it remodeled — and, in fact, GQ published a great oral history from the many directorate, athletes, and friends who take played with him in that location. Obama not only trash-talked NBA stars and ran up the score on anyone scared to foul him, but too oftentimes did so while wearing his shirt tucked into his pants. Absolutely merciless.

5. The Obama-Biden love affair
Don't call it a bromance. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are non bros; they are brothers. They are men who love and cherish each other. From their friendship bracelets to their jogging to their ice-foam dates, the Biden-Obama dynamic was proof positive of a partnership driven past shared vision. Biden, a ane-time principal opponent, managed to exist an incredible source of gravitas and goofiness in the Obama administration. His dirtbag Onion alter ego was legendary in its own correct, though generally, the existent Joe provided the best material. Of grade, it all led to Obama surprising Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a teary-eyed surprise ceremony.

6. That infamous tan suit
This one time, at a press conference in Baronial 2014, Obama wore a tan summer suit. For reasons mysterious to this very twenty-four hours, the selection blew upward in his face, prompting White Firm press secretary Josh Earnest to really say the words, "The president stands squarely behind the determination he fabricated yesterday to wearable his summer conform." Really! Although the whole kerfuffle was well-nigh certainly because Twitter had nil else to talk virtually that 24-hour interval, the tan conform debacle endures in part because yous know Obama is dying to wear information technology again. At his concluding press briefing, he joked that only Michelle had stopped him from doing then.

7. When Obama interacted with any child, always
No president gets to the White House without holding a few screaming babies, merely quite oft, Obama actually managed to soothe the tots back to silence. His reactions to kids in costumes, from Spider-Man to Prince to the pope, are among the nigh genuine expressions of joy he has shown to the public. So there's the iconic image, captured early on in his first term, of Obama bowing to a 5-twelvemonth-old boy and then he could run across if the president'south hair felt similar his. As the New York Times reported in 2012, the photo "struck so many White House aides and visitors that past pop demand it stays put while others come up and go."

Obama's ease with children is so natural that information technology would end upward being even funnier when kids weren't on his side. Merely recall of poor niggling Abigail, who during the 2012 ballot outburst into tears because of "Bronco Bamma and Paw Romney."

Or the fourth dimension Obama couldn't convince a bunch of screaming kids that "bees are good."

8. The impossibly absurd music, and Obama's singing vocalism
Coming off the era of Attorney General John Ashcroft's insipid patriotic anthem "Let the Hawkeye Soar," Obama brought much-needed musical savvy to the White House. A week later the 2016 election, the Obamas hosted a star-studded party with Janelle Monáe and Common, where Usher recorded the president dancing to "Hotline Bling." Of course, Obama'southward love of music wasn't just on display when dropping impossibly cool summer playlists, calling Kanye Due west a "jackass," and inspiring rappers to embrace a new political consciousness: The human can too sing. And he knew when to practise it.

The 8 All-time Memes of the Obama Presidency