The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

On my Birthday romp into DC this weekend, the boyfriend and I were bombarded everywhere by street vendors, hawking all sorts of tchotchkeys plastered with the likeness of Barack Obama. I passed on the mousepads, the keyrings, calendars, and buttons, until we came across some cute indie boys with a table of colorful shirts. This was the first artistic offering all night; I cheerfully forked over $20 for a depiction of a DJ'ing Obama in purple and yellow.

No doubt the concentration of Obama schwag was due to the impending inauguration, but we've seen Obama on everything since last 2008. As much as I hate to, I give credit to Shepard Fairey Hope Poster for helping to iconify Obama. No president, no campaign, has ever been this popular and marketable. I quite like it, though I'm a snob for production value.

Click through the jump for a few more of my favorite Obama threads...

Obama - Thats My DJ - The shirt I found on the street, can be found at the Shine Collective, a Baltimore boutique specializing in local fashions.

Barack Obama riding a Unicorn Shirt - Created by DC artist Chris Bishop, nothing exemplifies Barack's wild ride to the White House better than this shirt. It's a Unicorn for pete's sake, how awesome is that?

Black Bart Obama Bootleg - Black Bart was a popular bootleg spinoff in the 90's and Mishka brought it back, taking a stab at the run-of-the-mill Obama shirts everywhere. They mentioned in their blog "It's much harder than one might assume to draw something intentionally shitty." This shirt references a Young Jeezy song where the rapper sings "My President's black, my lambo's blue, and I'll be goddamned if the rims ain't too."