The emporer's new shoes

By Todd Stadler · Monday, December 8, 2003 12:01pm

I can't tell if this is too postmodern or just stupid, because it's a false dichotomy. Adbusters is selling a shoe.

Of course, they're doing this because they hate Nike. Not only is Nike the biggest force in the shoe industry, but at one point they employed sweatshops and other horrible conditions to produce their shoes. For all I know, they still do.

While I'd like to think that it's the latter point ? the horrible working conditions, the sub-living wages ? that causes people to lash out at Nike, it's clearly the former point ? that they're #1 ? that causes folks like those at Adbusters to get so riled up. Does the #27 company in the shoe industry use slave labor? Does anyone care? Does anyone even know what company that is?

So Adbusters is angry at Nike for being successful. Maybe the sweatshops contribute to their ire, but given Adbusters' general "up yours" demeanor towards American capitalism, I doubt it.

Nike could be the most righteous corporation, but as long as they remained, as Adbusters said, the "undisputed champion of logo culture, [their] swoosh an instant symbol of global cool," Adbusters would find a reason to make up a clever, if juvenile, poster mocking Nike.

All of which is fine. One could debate whether Adbusters' tactics, such as their famous spoof ads, actually accomplish anything besides amusing the viewer and increasing his resolve that he was right in the first place.

But this BlackSpot shoe goes beyond simply mocking a corporation's ads by changing a few letters.

What Adbusters is doing is selling a very-slightly-modified Converse Chuck Taylor. As far as I can tell, they painted a white circle on the side and a red dot (?) on the front.

I'll ignore for a minute that, in order to take a swipe at Nike, they have ripped off Converse*. Does Converse employ sweatshops? I don't know. Most of their shoes, I have read, are made in Asia. But whose shoes aren't?

Certainly not Adbusters. Theirs will apparently be made in South Korea. But hey, if you're going to play with the big boys, you sometimes have to act like them, right?

Which is what's so puzzling about this move. Adbusters isn't waging cultural warfare against our corporate overlords here, they're just adding to the cramped advertising space with their own strange brand.

One of the main complaints about Nike is the way they pollute our minds with their branding, selling not so much a shoe but an image.

Of course, Adbusters, by selling a shoe that thus far doesn't exist, that already looks like an existing shoe, and the entire raison d'?tre of which is to not be a Nike shoe, is doing the very same. They're not selling the shoe. They're selling not-Nike.

And they're branding it with a black dot, which is supposed to symbolize a lack of a logo, but looks suspiciously like one anyhow.

All of this so that the anti-capitalist iconoclast can shell out ? what, $65? ? for a shoe they'll wear with all the other iconoclasts while they laugh at all the dumb sheep who stupidly buy their expensive Nikes. Right.

I'm all for discussing the effect that massive amounts of advertising have on our society, as well as the ramifications of decent labor and trade laws and all that. But pretending to be ironic while only contributing to the problem isn't really helping.

*I was unaware when I first wrote this that, as of summer 2003, Nike owns Converse, including the Chuck Taylor All Star shoe. But the point is that I didn't know this. How many other people will percieve this Converse rip-off as pertaining to Nike?