The American presidential candidate who can do no wrong is experiencing the first signs of dip in popularity that has been called the “Barack-lash.”

Barack Obama has become a darling of the internet generation since starting his underdog campaign to beat the wife of a former president and become the first black leader of the Free World.

Millions downloaded a YouTube video of his “Yes We Can” speech set to music by the Black Eyed Peas front-man will.i.am with celebrity friends who included the actresses Scarlett Johansson and Amber Valletta.

But Mr Obama’s popularity has begun to rebound on him now that he has emerged as the Democratic front-runner. Even supporters are questioning whether he can really deliver on all their hopes.

Mathew Honan, a freelance writer and contributor to Mr Obama’s campaign, set up a website called www.obamaisyournewbicycle.com after his wife, Harper, a nurse and avid cyclist, began exhibiting symptoms of “Obamamania”.

In less than two weeks, there have been more than 2.3 million visits to the minimalist site, which carries messages such as: “Barack Obama escorted your Gramma across the street”; “Barack Obama baked you a pie”; “Barack Obama dedicated a song to you”; “Barack Obama carries a picture of you in his wallet”; and “Barack Obama remembered your birthday”.

The website obamamessiah.blogs-pot.com, asks: “Is Obama the Messiah?” and boasts a “transfiguration” scene of the Christlike candidate addressing supporters from a staircase.

In a section on “Obama Conversion Stories”, it quotes the author Deepak Chopra calling Mr Obama’s candidacy “a quantum leap in American consciousness”. The novelist Toni Morrison, who once called Bill Clinton “America’s first black president”, is quoted as calling Mr Obama “creative imagination, which, coupled with brilliance, equals wisdom”.

The SenatorObamas.com site pokes fun at the Illinois senator and his unusual name by portraying him in a variety of guises, from “Obamarama” to the nightwear-clad “Pajamabama”.

Before the Hollywood writers’ strike, Mr Obama won sympathy on the widely watched Saturday Night Live television comedy show, on November 3, playing himself as a guest at a party thrown by the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and her husband, Bill.

With the writers back at work, Saturday Night Live returned to lampoon the media obsession with Mr Obama. A white actor played Mr Obama in a sketch parodying the latest Democratic debate. The moderator confessed that she had been “clinically diagnosed as an Obamamaniac”.

Uncle Wiggly, a blogger on www.mydd.com, observed: “This will become a big deal inside the media ‘village’. I live in DC and know that every single political reporter and pundit fool watches every [ Saturday Night Live] during election time and all saw or will see this. They were or will be shocked, I mean quite shocked, to find out that they were the ones being ridiculed.”

David Brooks, a columnist for The New York Times, has diagnosed the mood swing felt by many liberals as “Obama Comedown Syndrome”.

“The afflicted had already been through the phases of Obamamania - fainting at rallies, weeping over their touch screens while watching Obama videos, spending hours making folk crafts featuring Michelle Obama’s face. These patients had experienced intense surges of hope-amine, the brain chemical that fuels euphoric sensations of historic change and personal salvation,” Mr Brooks wrote.

“But they found that as the weeks went on, they needed more and purer hope-injections just to preserve the rush. They wound up craving more hope than even the Hope Pope could provide, and they began experiencing brooding moments of suboptimal hopefulness. Anxious posts began to appear on the Yes We Can! Facebook pages. A sense of ennui began to creep through the nation’s Ian McEwan-centered book clubs.”

Fault lines

— Sites have popped up indicating that the online Obamamania has hit a wall. What kind of wall? A snarky, ironic, this-Obama-thing-has-gotten-over-the-top wall José Antonio Vargas in The Washington Post

— Obama has this almost irrational following, and I myself can’t sometimes explain why I’m supporting him. He’s all things to all men. At least that’s how I put it Noah Norman, 25, founder of www.SenatorObamas.com

— The internet is about authenticity. When somebody gets too popular, too mainstream, their authenticity is questioned. It’s like an indie band joining a major label. It’s like Kurt Cobain. It’s like ‘Juno’ Joshua Levy of TechPresident, a blog tracking online political campaigning

— One of the things about internet culture is there’s a smugness, a self-satisfaction about being ahead of the curve. But now that Obamamania has gotten to be so widespread online, folks are twisting and tweaking it Peter Leyden, director of New Politics Institute, a liberal think-tank

Times Recommends

• Google to digitise Iraqi artefacts
• Renault angers parents by naming new car Zoé
• Analysis: most lawless part of Philippines