On the south side of Union Square, here in New York City, there are stalls selling a mountain of Barack Obama merchandise. In the spirit of Obama's campaign, the vendors are a mixture of weathered street salesmen and art students, youthful white hipsters and grizzled black Barack n'rollers. In the Virgin Megastore across the street you can even buy plastic dolls of the Democratic candidate.
A couple of days ago I selected a pair of "ironic" election-based T-shirts for friends who'd demanded them. One shows Obama calmly meditating within the spiritual "O" of his initial, another says simply "Obama '08", but has the graphic design and deliberately distressed look of a Seventies basketball strip. One chum who's here to soak up the election alongside me has been wearing his current favourite, a clunking fist inscribed with the words "Obama Said Knock You Out!" (This, by the way, is a reference to a 1990 hip-hop track by LL Cool J, called "Mama Said Knock You Out". If you get the clever pop cultural reference, the T-shirt is deeply hilarous, I promise…)
But by the time I get back to the UK bearing these gifts, it’ll all be
over. If the polls are to be believed,
Barack will be on his way to
White House. This neverending conveyor belt of witty merchandise in
support of the candidate is great now, but if Obama wins the presidency
this time next week, is anyone going to want to wear it? Once he's the
most powerful man in the world, will anti-establishment hipster types
really want to be seen supporting him? The
next President will have to take responsibility for the wars the US is
fighting overseas, for the taxes people are paying to help themselves
out of the current economic mess, for things rather less hip than
simple "Change", "Hope" or "Progress".
The ironic T-shirt is the garment of the rebel
(or so its wearers would love to believe), not of the establishment. Those
manufacturers – and all the art students toiling over their silk screens –
might want to start winding down production in time for inauguration day.
There's a total of one Clinton '96 T-shirt on eBay, and if it's meant to be
funny, I don't get it any more.
While insightful, I disagree with your premise that the enthusiasm for all things Obama will fade once he wins the election. To the contrary, I think it will increase tremendously. His candidacy is unprecedented, and I think the popularity of promotional merchandise linking to him will not wane until after his inauguration in January. So far, we have only seen the early warning ripples of the tsunami of sales generated by his campaign. The greatest period of activity will occur between election day and the American Christmas holiday as these items find their way onto gift lists, into stockings, and under trees. The most popular of these, in my estimation, will be Obama pajamas, known as - what else? Ojamas. www.ojamas.us
Posted by: Ron | 29 October 2008 at 01:12 PM