“Obama sex” is an image of the Twitch streamer Pokimane photoshopped in front of an image of the former US president Barack Obama, in a manner that conveys a sexual scene, but is intended for comedic purposes.
It is DNA to users of the r/teenagers discord server, particularly to the now deleted #memes channel, and is an inside joke with many of the active users there. While the image itself is currently banned from being posted (current punishment is 4 ban points – borderline NSFW, or 6 ban points – NSFW, depending on the moderator), it is still joked about regularly, with many spin-off images and ‘starboard raids’ stemming from it.
Origin
The first apparent appearance of the term ‘Obama sex’ is from this short chain, several messages long, of several users repeating the phrase “Obama sex.” This seems to have stemmed from messages posted earlier in the conversation and pre-dates the first posting of the original ‘Obama Sex’ image. Unfortunately the original Obama Sex post was deleted, as well as its context, as the entire meme channel has been removed, However here is the original reaching Starboard
It is currently unclear who created and/or posted the original image or the exact date it was posted, although it was likely around early-mid October 2020, as all discussion of the image can be found after this general time frame. It was not considered punishable for (borderline) NSFW when it was first posted, evidenced by users’ surprise when they started to be pointed.
Soon after its original posting, it was proliferated further through non-“NSFW” spinoff memes, including edits of the original image to replace Pokimane with other people/characters in less sexually suggestive positions, and otherwise unrelated memes with captions referencing ‘Obama Sex’.
Original Obama Sex (sfw):
Bill spin off I created:
Early Proliferation
While it is unclear why this image in particular garnered so much attention, there are many valid reasons that allow some speculation.
As both Obama and Pokimane were two people that were very prevalent in popular meme culture at the time of the original image being uploaded, it would likely have received positive feedback and multiple reposts at the time of uploading. As well as this, users posting the image would start to receive ban points soon after it first made an appearance, after it became moderately popular to repost.
First punishment given to a user for posting Obama Sex:
While this may have been intended to discourage users from uploading/spamming the image, it was likely the main factor for the heightened spread of the image, as many people considered it absurd that what they would consider a SFW image (for 2020 standards), and one that was intended for quick comedy, could be interpreted as NSFW.
After it became against the rules to post it, it quickly became a popular target for small ‘starboard raids,’ where users would group together to quickly react to the image with the star emote in order to have the message posted to the #starboard channel, where it became easily visible for other users.
Star Raids
While there have been many small ‘Obama Sex’ starboard raids throughout the months since its creation, most of these have been deleted from the #starboard channel by server moderators.
The most notable of these starboard raids occurred on 11/15/20, where ‘Obama Sex’ and related images were posted to the #starboard channel “114 times.” Many of the spin-off, non-NSFW posts are still on the #starboard and #memes channels from the 11/15 event.
Note: Sadly no image or proof exists of this, only the archived wiki recount you just read, it may be untrue for all we know.
Soon after the majority of activity surrounding the event had subsided, former server moderator Pete made a post, saying “200 stars and I’ll add #obama-sex.”
This likely helped with further proliferation of the meme over the next several days as users in the #memes channel haggled other users to “star” the post. At the time of writing it currently has 277 star reactions (The channel in question was never added).
Post Obama Sex
Following the 15/11 event, several ‘Obama Sex’ discord servers were established, garnering some attention, but most, if not all, were intended for humour in the moment, and they died out relatively quickly.
Many users who were active around the time of/participated in the 15/11 event have since been permanently banned from the server (mainly for reasons not connected to Obama Sex). However, as a result of prolonged proliferation by other regular users of the #memes channel, even new users who were not in the discord server before 16/11 are usually aware of ‘Obama Sex.’
While most images of ‘Obama Sex’ have been deleted, either by server moderators or by the users who posted them, several images (mainly spanning from October-December) still remain undeleted. Let us know if you find any or have some.
The original ‘Obama Sex’ image is no longer posted. Being around the server long enough you may hear it referenced at most. While it is not the cultural Teenserv icon it once was, it is a incredibly significant part of Teenserv history.