A short history of Obama trying (really hard) to look cool online

In 2015, President Barack Obama is taking the post-State of the Union media circus to YouTube. He’s done Reddit AMAs; he’s appeared on Web comedies; he’s smiled for a slew of behind-the-scenes photos and GIFs, all tastefully filtered and posted to Instagram. The Obama White House is on literally every mainstream social network except Myspace; there are people employed at said White House who are paid to turn President Obama’s policies into “shareable” memes. It’s not particularly difficult to see why President Obama tries so hard to maintain this cool-dad persona; it did, after all, win him two elections. But it’s safe to say President Obama’s antics have gotten, well, a bit more aggressive since his first campaign.