The First Meme President

Ryan Teague Beckwith has an exhaustive history of the memes of the Obama presidency, including the hope poster, Superman, the teleprompter, Spock, the Joker, the Jedi knight and “not bad.”

“Though they’re usually playful, memes can tell us a lot about what people really think about the president. They’ve tracked the hopes projected on him, the difficulties he’s faced in office and the fears of his opponents. And though they are generated and sustained by grassroots Internet users, Obama has played a key role in popularizing many of them.”