President Obama, sliding toward the mid-30s in approval ratings, is making a sudden push to win back the disillusioned youth who put him into office in the first place.

Back in the 2012 campaign, the president did a 180 on his stance about gay marriage. The move -- an epiphany and an "evolution" of thought, as he would put it -- was seen as a clear effort to shore up his support on college campuses, those temples of liberal tolerance. And it worked.

Just this month, Obama said he thought smoking marijuana was no worse than drinking alcohol (and he should know). He was, of course, applauded from University of Florida to Choom State College in Hawaii.

Now, the president is turning to social media to win back wayward millennials.

"The star of the State of the Union message has been announced, and it is not U.S. President Barack Obama. It's his senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett," says Bloomberg columnist Kirsten Salyer. Jarrett "commandeered" the White House Instagram account Thursday, along with speech writer Cody Kennan, posting pictures of themselves to offer a sneak peek into how the speech is prepared -- an insider's look.

Salyer ends her piece with a black and white picture from the White House Twitter account showing the back of the president's chair as he sits at his desk in the Oval Office working on the SOTU speech. She asks:

Where's the POTUS in this process? For a president who has gotten slammed by critics for teleprompter use, why the focus on the team of advisers who are writing the speech? That's last message the White House should be sending to young people is that he has turned his back on them.

But the new social media effort is meant to garner attention from the more than 150 million mostly younger users of Instragram -- and hundreds of millions more in other social media outlets. Why now? A recent report showed that a majority of Americans 25 and under favor his removal from office.

Salyer states that this "lost love" is attributed to the "discontent about Obamacare, high student loan debt and the National Security Agency's domestic spying." There is even a humorous Tumblr site devoted to blaming the president for just about anything called "Thanks, Obama!"

As part of the reach-out, Obama will be hosting a virtual "Big Block of Cheese Day" online inviting "questions from everyday Americans in real-time on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and via Google+ Hangout." This "open house" will take place on Wednesday, Jan. 29, and will include "dozens of White House officials" answering questions.

A video featuring White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and two cast members from the ultra-liberal NBC show "The West Wing" was made to promote this event (yes, youngsters aren't watching "Game of Thrones" or "Orange Is the New Black," they're watching old re-runs of "The West Wing").

President Obama has always been dedicated to the idea that the White House is truly "The People's House" and has worked to make 1600 Pennsylvania and his administration open and accessible.

Wasn't he the one who shut down the White House during his petty budget battle with Congress? The answer is yes, but do millennials even know that?