Standing in the freezing cold weather for seven hours in Washington D.C. amongst 2.7 million other people does not sound like something fun to do, but it sure was for everyone I encountered, myself included. There were moments of insecurity, instability and impatience, but it was all diminished by the significance of the day. I stood witness as Barack Obama took the oath of office as the first African-American president of the United States.

The inauguration was nearly surreal; in fact it was like no one else had ever been inaugurated before. In my lifetime, I have attended many rock concerts, and I would consider the inauguration the biggest of them all. Have politics really become hip?

Surely, everyone at the inauguration was exuberant and there was a zest of unity in the air, but I could not ignore the box of commercialism in which our new president seemed to be encased. His smiling face is no longer known as simply an admired political public servant but also a pop-culture symbol. His celebrity status in some minds is similar to the likes of Jay-Z, P. Diddy and possibly even Denzel Washington. For instance, during George W. Bush’s presidency, you never heard entertainment journalists giving a thorough and invested critique of the first family’s wardrobe decisions.

You could not turn a corner in D.C. over the inauguration weekend without someone trying to sell you something. The most ridiculous of the souvenirs included: Obama puppets, Obama board games and naturally the ever-reliable Obama condoms. Does Obama know that his face is on a condom? Did he warrant the selling of those condoms? What could all this mean for the people’s role in America’s political system right now? Are we actually, seriously becoming too interested and too involved?

A very disappointing moment during the inauguration ceremony occurred amongst the crowd when Bush was shown walking down the corridor on the jumbo screens. The crowd did not scream out well wishes.