inaugurations and celebrations: why?
January 20, 2009
Does anyone remember the words of hope and inspiration of the last inauguration? With generally high approval ratings (in 2005), we (as a whole) celebrated our fight for freedom and democracy.
While my colleagues will be celebrating with free pizza (what agency doesn't give out free pizza at every noon-ish meeting?), I will be joining my friends back home in the place where this all started - social media. While I'm oversees on vacation, there's nothing quite like a live Hulu stream (Anonymous Mode in Chrome solves overseas IP address blocking) and chatting it up on twitter.
When I shared my plans with my wife, she asked an interesting question, Why do we care about inauguration speaches? And even if there were meaningful, inspirational and realsitic sentiments being shared, why does this inauguration feel more like more than a political event?
I believe that inaugurations are generally like Superbowl pregame shows. We're excited about what's to come, and with lots of media hype behind what is often a meaningless speach, we're driven by our friends, family and colleagues to believe in it's importance.
However, as Obama chose to frame his battle cry of "Yes We Can" into "Yes We Did", this inauguration has become a victory parade. We are celebrating our own achievements, our own investments in Obama the brand, Obama the man and Obama the movement. We are celebrating our moment of achievement when we as a nation, elected Barak Hussein Obama.
Here's to hoping that both he and we can live up to the hype, live up the progress, and once again become both a nation inspired and a nation climbing towards better peaks.