A FAMILIAR MEME. A NEW CONTEXT.

Top 5 Memes with Dmitry Medvedev

What this meme means

Dmitry Medvedev is one of Russia's most recognizable meme politicians, with his image, phrases and career episodes serving as material for jokes and photoshops for years, often showing him as an upbeat, easygoing leader.

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In the photo, Dmitry Medvedev, in a dark suit and light shirt, stands by a green board in front of a microphone, smiling broadly with both thumbs raised. The approving gesture and pleased look seem like an ordinary pose at an official event, but it's exactly such shots that, in memes, turn into a symbol of optimism that the man himself can't always back up. The picture is usually used as a reaction to news, a promise, or a statement, when one wants to show that everything is under control. The exact origin of this particular photo hasn't been established.

The image itself is built on contrast. Medvedev is known for his restraint, so his rare emotional gestures, phrases, and everyday episodes easily turn into jokes. Unlike Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who deliberately shocked the public, Medvedev tends to display meme-worthiness as a character trait rather than as the result of deliberate scandals. This contrast between his official role and his lively reactions is what makes him a recurring hero of internet humor.

Origins: "Medved" and the first memes

The first links between Medvedev's surname and internet humor appeared long before his presidency. In 2006 and 2007, building on the earlier "Preved, medved" meme, the image of "Medved" emerged: users of Dirty.ru responded to posts about presidential candidates with the phrase "And still, Medved" ("И всё-таки Медвед"). The similarity between the surname and the word "medved" (bear) sparked a whole wave of jokes that spread from one forum to another and quickly went beyond a narrow audience.

On LiveJournal, people wrote humorous rhymes and drew caricatures about the future successor, and the "Medved" meme caught on so well that, according to Meduza, the Associated Press news agency once mixed up the internet joke with reality and reported that Putin had been asked a question about the successor. The episode shows well how deeply the meme environment had already woven the image of the future politician into Runet folklore.

Key memes of 2010-2011

In 2010, during a trip to the US, Medvedev met Steve Jobs, who gave him an iPhone 4 a day before its global release. Photos with the gadget and jokes about the "iPhonchik" cemented Medvedev's image as a technocrat and a gadget enthusiast. Later, photoshops featuring new devices became a frequent genre, and the word "iPhonchik" itself entered colloquial speech as an ironic nod to his interest in tech.

The loudest meme became the "little reshuffle" ("rokirovochka"). On September 24, 2011, the United Russia congress announced that Putin would return to the presidency while Medvedev would head the party's list for the State Duma elections. The name was coined on Runet and quickly became the label for the whole story. Around the same time, Medvedev's line "No one will ever go back to 2007," said about economic modernization, turned into a symbol of nostalgia for the emo era and soft, optimistic politics. A dance video to the song "American Boy," posted in April 2011, racked up more than 12 million views, and a video of Medvedev playing badminton with Putin, which Medvedev posted on his blog, became an occasion for irony in the press.

The nap, the duck house, and "He is not your Dimon"

In 2014, Medvedev was caught napping at the opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics, and photos of him dozing off at official events became a recurring meme. That same year, a Medvedev selfie with an iPhone in an elevator spread as photoshops, including scenes from the movie "The Matrix." These pictures work the same way as the others: they show the politician in an unexpected, slightly helpless role, and the viewer fills in the caption themselves.

In 2016, responding to a pensioner from Crimea who complained about her small pension, Medvedev said, "There's simply no money right now." The phrase quickly got shortened to the formula "There's no money, but hang in there" ("Денег нет, но вы держитесь"), which became a byword for official cynicism. That same year, Alexei Navalny's investigation into Medvedev's estate in Plyos, where a pond and a little duck house were found, gave rise to the image of the "duck house," and in 2017 the slogan "He is not your Dimon" became the title of a new investigation and spawned hundreds of parodies. Medvedev himself called the accusations "mush, nonsense, and compote" ("муть, чушь и компот").

Why memes about Medvedev work

Medvedev is convenient for memes because of the duality of his role. During the "tandem" years, many saw him as a formal, "technical" president under a strong Putin, and that image became a shorthand formula that's easy to drop into any picture. The meme here works as a condensed explanation of the political situation: the viewer instantly understands the joke, even without knowing the details.

Besides, Medvedev's meme-worthiness rests on the recognizability of his gestures and phrases. The smile with raised thumbs, napping in public, or the line about money easily carry over into new contexts. According to Meduza, in 2020 he gave up the post of prime minister to Mikhail Mishustin, and in the summer of 2021 he didn't make the list of United Russia candidates for the State Duma, yet the jokes didn't die down, and the image keeps coming back into the feed every time there's a reason to remember a politician who smiles in the most unexpected situations.