Obama Awards Obama a Medal

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About

Obama Awards Obama a Medal refers to a humorous photoshop of an award ceremony photograph in which the former United States President Barack Obama awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to himself. Online, the image has been used in memes about the former president and circulated as a reaction.

Origin

On November 22nd, 2016, then-incumbent United States President Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medals of freedom to 21 individuals, both living and dead, including musician Bruce Springsteen, talk show host Ellen Degeneres and former athlete Michael Jordan. On the same day, Getty Images posted several hundred images from the event, including a photo of Obama awarding the medal to Springsteen (shown below, left).^[1] On January 11th, 2017, satirical news website The Barbed Wire posted an edited version of the photograph made by an unknown author in which Barack Obama appeared to give the medal to himself in the article "Obama Awards Himself "Greatest President Ever" Medal During Farewell" (shown below, right).^[2]

Spread

On January 11th, 2017, the edit was posted by Newszii^[3] and Signs of the Times.^[4] On January 12th, an unknown Redditor posted the first known meme based on the image to /r/memes subreddit,^[5] with the post gaining over 820 likes in six months (Memecenter^[6] reupload shown below).

In the following years, the image has seen a moderate spread online, used both as meme format^[7] and in posts making fun of and/or criticizing the former president.^[8] A March 17th, 2018, post containing the image in /r/hmmm subreddit gained over 42,300 upvotes in six months.^[9] On December 17th, 2018, Redditor wowserbowser879 posted a meme based on the format which gained over 42,600 upvotes in six months.^[10]

In late June 2019, the format saw a surge in popularity following a June 21st post by Redditor Insecure_Mind which accumulated over 65,600 upvotes in two weeks (shown below).^[11]