Brock Obama
Brock Obama is a photoshop mashup that fuses Barack Obama with Brock, the rock-type Pokémon trainer, usually swapping their faces or bodies for absurd effect. The joke first surfaced on YTMND in February 2008 and grew huge through a Facebook page launched January 30th, 2010, which became one of the earliest meme pages on that platform.
Overview
Brock Obama is a hybrid character that fuses the 44th U.S. President Barack Obama with Brock, the Pewter City Gym leader from the Pokémon anime1. Most versions are photoshops that swap faces or bodies between the two, and rock-type Pokémon like Onix or Geodude sometimes appear in the background as a visual pun on Brock's specialty3. The joke leans on the near-rhyme of the two names plus the absurdity of a cartoon trainer running the executive branch.
Fans built out a fake political-religious mythology around the character called 'Brockism,' with the president supposedly ruling from Pewter City as party leader of a fictitious group called the Brockists. Urban Dictionary picked up the 'Brockism' entry on July 1st, 20112. The Brock Obama Facebook page4 kept the bit alive through years of scripture-style, in-character status updates.
How It Spread
How to Use This Meme
A typical Brock Obama edit takes a photo of President Obama and swaps in Brock's spiky-haired anime head, or drops Obama's face onto Brock's cartoon body1. Creators often place a rock-type Pokémon like Geodude or Onix in the background as a visual pun on the 'rock' wordplay. Captions may reference 'Brockism' scriptures or the fictional Pewter City presidency to stay in character2.