Obamasnow

About

Obamasnow refers to an image of former U.S. President Barack Obama photoshopped onto the Pokémon character Abomasnow. Their names are similar in sound, hence the meme. Creators started photoshopping the character back in 2009 on sites like DeviantArt. More memes involving Obamasnow appeared on FunnyJunk, among other platforms, going into the 2010s and 2020s.

Origin

Internet users on DeviantArt noticed the coincidence between Obama's and Abomasnow's names before anyone else online. The first user on the website to make an Obamasnow reference was blackout501st,^[1] whose image (shown below) depicts a presidential Abomasnow holding up an "Obamasnow '08" sign. It was posted on April 6th, 2009. Over the course of 12 years, it earned 14 favorites and over 2,000 views.

Spread

As images of Obamasnow circulated Deviant in 2009, a user named RexcoCorps^[2] posted an image of "McCaingaskahn" (shown below), a portmanteau of John McCain and the Pokémon Kangaskhan. This image added to the political Pokémon and Obamasnow lore. When posted on April 9th, 2009, it received 14 favorites and 1,000 views over the course of 12 years.

On August 15th, 2009, DeviantArt user HateFarron^[3] posted an Obamasnow image (shown below, left). It received two favorites over 12 years. Almost a year later, on February 15th, 2010, DeviantArt user hannathebuneary^[4] posted a different Obamasnow image (shown below, right). However, hannathebuneary is no longer active on the website.

On October 10th, 2010, an Obamasnow image was posted to FunnyJunk^[5] by the user SwaggerBadger (shown below). It received seven likes over the course of 11 years.

Going into 2011, more political Pokémon characters were added to the Obamasnow lore. For instance, an anonymous FunnyJunk^[6] user posted a meme (shown below) that referenced multiple political-pun Pokémon characters including Obamasnow and McCaingaskahn. It was posted on October 4th, 2011, and received five likes over 10 years.

Obamasnow memes were shared on Tumblr ^[7] in 2012 and on iFunny ^[8] in 2013. In 2014, they were then used in memes on YouTube. An Obamasnow video was uploaded to YouTube^[9] on March 1st, 2014, (shown below) by the YouTuber BlairBott. Over the course of seven years, the video received over 10,100 views.

Obamasnow gained prominence in subreddits like /r/MandJTV^[10] and /r/Hololive^[11] going into the 2020s. Overall, the image was used mostly as an exploitable where meme creators inserted it into other templates and catchphrases like the I'm Sick Of Crying But Inside I'm Dying (shown below).

On November 23rd, 2021, Fauna of the Hololive virtual YouTuber talent agency mistakenly pronounced Abomasnow's name as Obamasnow, resulting in users spamming the mispronunciation in the chat. This brought attention once again to the meme. The YouTube^[12] channel HoloCrumb Ch. uploaded the clip from the live stream on the same day, gaining roughly 42,500 views over the course of two months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References