Former US President Barack Obama is an icon, and his witty humor is well-documented on the internet. Some moments, like his recent interaction with Team USA Men’s Basketball, are unintentional but hilarious. As reported by The Guardian, Obama met the team before they headed off to the 2024 Paris Olympics and left the internet in stitches with his amusing greeting style.
Image Source: Former President Barack Obama speaks during an event at the White House on April 5, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The former president greeted the players on stage in a formal fashion to wish them luck. However, he unknowingly mirrored a famous sketch from "Key & Peele," a popular comedy show that aired over a decade ago. In the sketch, Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key use their brilliant comic timing to parody Obama, with Peele portraying the former president.
Image Source: Former U.S. President Barack Obama (C) and Robbie Robinson (R) ahead of the Paris Olympic Games on July 10, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
A clip of the episode was shared on the official TikTok page, @keyandpeelecc, where Peele, dressed as Obama, hilariously switches his greeting style. He formally shakes hands with white members of the line, saying “Nice to meet you,” but gives enthusiastic hugs and friendly handshakes to black members. The sketch humorously contrasts his formal and informal greetings based on the person's race.
The sketch was hilarious, but it became top-tier comedy when Obama unknowingly reenacted it in real life. A post shared by Ahmed (@big_business_) revealed that Obama, without having a clue, enacted the “Key and Peele” scene in his recent encounter with the basketball team. “Key and Peele sketch Team USA edition,” he wrote in his caption.
As he greeted the team, Obama firmly shook hands with the white players and leaned in for friendly hugs with the black players. He engaged in banter, laughter, and friendly handshakes with the black players, making the interaction even more hilarious.
Obama's subconscious reenactment of the scene showcased his natural wit and won hearts again. @fameboyej2x wrote, “This is going down in history.” @QteeFoxx added, “Oh I know he watched that and took the opportunity now, Key and Peele will always be legendary.” @Baugh30Chris revealed, “Y’all know the sketch was based on President. Obama did that with Team USA in 2012, before the sketch right?” He also shared a still of the scene from 2012. @phatrabbitkill2 exclaimed, “Never imagined this was real.” @Tom147493195697 observed, “The fact that they knew it too and all were laughing is golden.”
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.