Obama Coins?
I was at the mall this weekend, and saw a kid who looked to be about 16 years old wearing an Obama t-shirt. I've been working with kids for a long time, and I don't remember ever seeing one wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a U.S. politician on it (unless it was being derogatory.) But this guy was wearing the shirt unironically. I just can't remember ever seeing one of my students' wearing a Reagan, Bush (I or II), or Clinton t-shirt. The New York Times is today calling this "Generation O."
(Also, over the weekend, I saw a television commercial for "official" Obama coins. It reminds me of the kinds of merchandising you see in Europe that feature members of a royal family or in Memphis for Elvis. I guess it doesn't take long for the kitsch to come along.)
But one wonders how this kind of admiration for a president will transform not only the media's longstanding satirizing of the powerful, but an entire construct of "teenage" that has developed over the last century.
posted by William Kist @ 10:27 PM >2 Comments 
2 Comments:
Obama was definitely the "politician of choice" at Hoban this fall. He was simply a magnet for the youth...as well as a majority of the faculty. Hopefully, he can live up to such high expectations.
i have noticed much of this as well. my concern is the turning of what appears to be a man with vision and potential into a celebrity. inevitably, celebrities disappoint us, don't they? either some video will surface, or they will make a movie which bombs and they fall out of favor. what is to become of a celebrity who is in elected office? we may have known if jfk hadn't been pushed into myth after being assassinated. will obama be destined to fail, regardless of the good he does? is it possible for him to live up to the impossible standards all this attention have given him?
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