About
Barack Obama watching tv is a photograph of president Barack Obama seated in front of a television and laughing towards someone offscreen. It has become a popular exploitable image online in which people edit what was displayed on the tv screen with various random images.
Origin
On August 28th 2008, Hillary Clinton held a speech at the Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado, in which she called on delegates to vote for her rival, then senator Barack Obama, for presidency. Broadcasted nationally, Obama followed the event on television while being invited in the home of supporters in Billing, Montana[1]. Papparazzi photographs were taken by Emmanuel Dunand of the Agence France-Presse (owned by Getty Images). One of them shows the senator laughing and looking at someone offscreen (shown below).
Spread
As early as September 30th 2008, a parody version featuring a woman giving an hidden handjob to her partner on the tv screen was posted on blog “The Wiz of Odds”[2]. In the following year, many foreign-speaking blogs featured their own parodies[3][4].
On October 6th 2009, Youtube user JustinBieberOneLove uploaded a video in which Obama is seemingly watching singer Justin Bieber on tv (shown below). As of February 2015, the video has accumulated more than 200 000 views.
On March 21th 2010, a photoshop contest featuring the photograph was organized in a Newgrounds forum thread[5], which has led to more than 4 000 views and 50 replies.
On January 16th 2012, another edit featuring deceased rapper Tupac Shakur was posted on blog Truth about Tupac[6]. On January 20th 2015, Tumblr user afroforestry posted a parody picture featuring Tom Brady[7] in reference to the Bradying trend.
Examples
I Posted It Again, LOL
A variation from the meme appeared on the web as the same photograph featuring the macro “I Posted It Again, LOL” underneath. It was mainly as a reaction image used with various pictures referencing “copypasta”: stories or recurring photographs posted on imageboards and forums in order to signify that a thread was actually a repost made by “trolls”:
Exploitable
External References
[1]Daily Mail – Hillary Clinton seals nomination for Barack Obama… but stops short of actually helping him
[2]The Wiz of Odds – A Feel Good Story
[3]Resistencia Bucare Caracas – Montaner: “El comunismo ha sido destruido como consecuencia de las fricciones internas entre las cúpulas dirigentes”
[4]Voorzieners – Zelfs Obama is stil als de VOORZIENER spreekt !
[5]Newgrounds – PHotoshop Obama’s tv
[6]Truth About Tupac – 2pacalypse2012 on the 1911United Front