bethb's Diaryland Diary

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don't let nike steal your shit too.

A lesson in Bullshit 101 or, How to Have Your Cake and Eat it Too. by Nike
so for a few weeks, the kids have ben grumbleing about this:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-06/23.shtml

it doesn't show up completely well on the website, but nike basically co-opted a (the)minor threat cover of alec m. sitting on some stairs i think at the wilson center (RIP). they got a new model, shod him in some nikes, changed "minor" to "major" and tinted the whole thing blue.
not much of a diff.
so the kids got angry (myself included) and hopefully inundated nike with angry letters.
what i wanted to see happen is nike pull the ad, publicly appologize, fire the designer and make a sizable donation to minor threat's choosing.
one of those things happened. the ad was pulled. they attempted to appologize but it's all bunk "uh, yeah, it's an ad for our shit, but we didn't create it thus we're not responsible" which is crap.
you can read it here:http://www.nike.com/nikeskateboarding/v2/main.html
if you look to the right under "news" there's a public appology to minor threat and dischord.
there's other stuff since my roommate works for dischord but i ain't sayin' it here.
kids- by all means, go out and make great art. but the line between homage and blatant fucking rip-off is not so fine. give credit where credit is due and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD don't whore out the small guys who are doing it right by using their stuff to shill for the big, gross money grubbing companies.
if the designer really was a skateboarder, then he needs to have his decks broken, his toes tied, his records melted and be forced to listen to top 40 (and ONLY top 40) radio until he dies.
and maybe a good kick to the wang.
we'll see.

9:51 a.m. - 2005-06-28

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