Obama is Fashion

The first time I saw it, I shrugged it off. The second time I saw it, I took a mental note. The third time I saw it, I realized this was a trend. I’m talking about the hipster Obama t-shirts I keep seeing everywhere I go. This really hit me hard when I was in DC the other week at Georgetown and I’d see kids in $250 True Religion jeans and a multi-colored Obama t-shirt.

Just today, NBC News reported their findings that Obama merchandise is outselling McCain merchandise by a staggering 5 to 1. I did my own quick look at CafePress, which is one of the largest online platforms for custom designed products, and I quickly found that Obama has 1,090,000 t-shirt designs available compared to McCain’s 317,000. Also interesting. Just looking at the front pages of each section, ALL of the designs tagged as Obama are pro-Obama t-shirts with positive messages about Obama. Looking at the McCain designs, many of them are not out-right pro-McCain, but rather anti-Obama.

I have mixed/conflicted feelings about this:

As a marketing fiend I find it exciting that business has found a way to profit off the aura, ferver, and emotions that surround Obama. This is awesome. These t-shirt companies and merchandise vendors are making lots of money. It says a lot about how people perceive Obama and McCain. Reality is nothing. Perception is everything. From a marketing merchandise perspective, Obama comes off trendy, hip, and fresh. It’s brilliant of the Obama campaign that they are CRUSHING McCain with such strong merchandising/branding efforts.

Now as a citizen who loves following politics, I can’t help but question if some people just wear the Obama t-shirts as a trendy fashion item with no real political feelings behind it. I love to see when people have conviction in their beliefs — when people have passion, but does the trendy fashion nature of Obama pull people in who at their core don’t care? People who may just wear this shirt as an expression of how “hip” they are? Perhaps because my parents grew up in a communist, propaganda filled regime I always grew up with politics being a subject of seriousness and I cynically don’t like the merchandising hype of something political. It’s a free and beautiful country, and I’m not one to say what people can and can’t wear; I can’t help but feel some sense of political apathy around me when people wear things that they may have no idea about.

I think the business side of me loves watching and analyzing the image, branding, and development of Obama as a marketing character, but my feelings on how politics should be make me wary of the magnitude of merchandising involved in this campaign.