Intellectual Property Law

Obama Bake Sale: Or, forget representation, let's eat cake!

By Siva Vaidhyanathan

On June 22, 2008, our two households hosted bake sales for Barack Obama ? along with 12,000 other MoveOn.org supporters at over 700 locations across the country. MoveOn is billing their event as ?the biggest bake sale in history.? Like so many D.I.Y. activities, the cross-country bake-off combined the most traditional hands-on work (home cooking) with social media (electronic planning and marketing). The bake sale concept hearkens back to 1950s fund raising, drawing on the neighborliness and comfortable conservatism popular in today?s progressive political world. The past two months have seen married gays gracing the cover of the NY Times in 50s attire, posing with pot roasts in stagy, highly produced photos that recall the heyday of modern advertising (part Martha Stewart, part Diane Arbus). Meanwhile, Michelle Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, urged to soften her look , shows up for photo ops in little black dresses and big white pearls. Are the 50s the new 60s? Is all this retro-modernism and neo-homemaking a way of softening the blow of progressive ideas?

Literally and figuratively, what we collected and experienced was ?change? in our political and social process, cooked up through the creative collision of the classic bake sale with modern social media. Here are our stories ? along with some food for thought about branding, democracy and the internet.

Full post as published by SIVACRACY .NET on June 26, 2008 (boomark / email).