#to all those sexist soccer bros

[cynthpop29]

My new reaction to everything in life.

[arcticdementor]

“Hey bro! Check out this Nike ad!” This was my entry point into a new world.

…

Since Carlos had lived mostly outside the United States, he was able to follow soccer on a level I’d never encountered in my hometown. Back then, before social media and the advent of scarf-wearing Northwestern fútbol hipsters, big-time European soccer was like the metric system: Known to almost all but ourselves. But Carlos knew, and immediately used LimeWire to curate me a massive archive of 1990s through early 2000s soccer highlights. What was I doing in the world without them?

Oddly enough, in trying to inculcate me in soccer fandom, he started not with game highlights, but with the advertisements. Yes, Carlos was an educator and a voluntary footsoldier for Big Apparel. Going in, I had no clue about high-quality, internationally popular Nike soccer ads. The ads, written by the legendary Wieden+Kennedy firm, were miniature movies, films that were often creatively daring but also quite funny. The most popular of these ads might be “Good vs. Evil,” from 1996, where Nike’s best soccer players team up to play Satan’s literal army. The blending of sacrilege, theology and comedy just worked, like a more ambitious version of Space Jam that somehow took itself less seriously than Space Jam.

…

Yes, I know ads aren’t supposed to be high art. I understand that they are the purest distillation of manipulative greed. And yet, they sometimes are culturally relevant generational touchstones. While Nike was weaving soccer into enduring pop culture abroad, it was having a similar kind of success with basketball and baseball stateside. These ads weren’t just pure ephemera. Michael Jordan’s commercials were so good that, as he nears age 60, his sneaker still outsells any modern athlete’s. “Chicks dig the long ball” is a phrase (a) that can get you sent to the modern HR department and b) whose origins are fondly remembered by most American men over the age of 35.

Modern Nike ads will never be so remembered. It’s not because we’re so inundated with information these days, though we are. And it’s not because today’s overexposed athletes lack the mystique of the 1990s superstars, though they do. It’s because the modern Nike ads are beyond fucking terrible.

…

They’re bad for many causes, but one in particular is an incongruity at the company’s heart. Nike, like so many major institutions, is suffering from what I’ll call Existence Dissonance. It’s happening in a particular way, for a particular reason and the result is that what Nike is happens to be at cross-purposes from what Nike aspires to be.

…

For all the talk of a racial reckoning within major industries, Nike’s main problem is this: It’s a company built on masculinity, most specifically Michael Jordan’s alpha dog brand of it. Now, due to its own ambitions, scandals, and intellectual trends, Nike finds masculinity problematic enough to loudly reject.

This rejection is part of the broader culture war, but it’s accelerating due to an arcane quirk in the apparel giant’s strange restructuring plan, announced in June. Under the leadership of new CEO John Donahoe, Nike is moving away from its classic discrete sports categories (Nike Basketball, Nike Soccer, etc.) in favor of a system where all products are shoveled into one of three divisions: men’s, women’s and kids’. Obviously Nike made clothing tailored to the specificities of all these groups before, but now, Nike is emphasizing gender over sport. Gone is the model of the product appealing to basketball fans because they are basketball fans. It’s now replaced by a model of, say, the product appealing to women because they are women.

And hey, women buy sneakers too. Actually, women buy the lion’s share of clothing in the United States. While women shoppers are market dominant in nearly every aspect of American apparel, the clothing multinational named after a Greek goddess happens to be a major exception. At Nike, according to its own records, men account for roughly twice as much revenue as women do.

You might see that stat and think, “Well, this means that Nike will prioritize men over women in its new, odd, gendered segmentation of the company.” That’s not necessarily how this all works, thanks to a phenomenon I’ll call Undecided Whale. The idea is that a company, as its aims grow more expansive, starts catering less to the locked-in core customer and more to a potential whale which demonstrates some interest. Sure, you can just keep doing what’s made you rich, but how can you even focus on your primary business with that whale out there, swimming so tantalizingly close? The whale, should you bring it in, has the potential to enrich you far more than your core customers ever did. And yeah yeah yeah, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but those were birds. This is a damned whale! And so you start forgetting about your base.

You can see this dynamic in other places. For the NBA, China is its Undecided Whale. It could be argued that the NBA fixates more on China than on America, even if the vast majority of TV money comes from U.S. viewership. The league figures it has more or less hit its ceiling in its home country, so China becomes an obsession as this massive, theoretical growth engine.

…

Here’s the main issue for Nike in this endeavor: The company, as a raison d’être, promotes athletic excellence. While women are among Nike’s major sports stars, the core of high-level performance, in the overwhelming majority of sports, is male. Every sane person knows that, though nobody in professional class life seems rude enough to say so. Obviously, there’s the observable reality of who tends to set records and there’s also the pervasive understanding that testosterone, the main male sex hormone, happens to give unfair advantages to the athletes who inject it.

Speaking of which, there’s a famous This American Life episode from 2002 where the public radio journos actually test their own testosterone levels. The big joke of the episode is just how comically low their T levels are. Sure, you would stereotype bookish public radio men in this way, and yet the results are on the nose enough to shock.

As a nerdy media-weakling type, I can relate to the stunning realization that you’ve been largely living apart from T. Before working in the NBA setting, I was an intern in the cubicles of Salon.com’s San Francisco office, around the time it was shifting from respectable online magazine into inane outrage content mill. Going from that setting to the NBA locker room was some jarring whiplash, like leaving the faculty lounge for a pirate ship. To quote Charles Barkley on the latter culture, “The locker room is sexist, racist, and homophobic … and it’s fun and I miss it.”

…

The “Good vs. Evil” ad boasts a “Like” to “Dislike” ratio of 20-to-1 on YouTube. On June 17th of 2021, Nike put out an ad ahead of the Euro Cup that referenced “Good vs. Evil” as briefly as it could. In this case, a little child popped his collar and used Cantona’s catchphrase. As of this writing, the new ad has earned a thousand more punches of the Dislike than of the Like button.

When you see it, it’s no surprise that the latest Euro Cup ad is disliked. I mean, you have to look at this shit. I know we’re so numb to the ever-escalating emanations of radical chic from our largest corporations, but sometimes it’s worth pausing just to take stock and gawk.

…

But today we are in the land of new football, where we take dictatorial direction from less-than-athletic minors. After her announcement, we are treated to a montage of different people who offer tolerance bromides.

“There are no borders here!”

“Here, you can be whoever you want. Be with whoever you want.”

(Two men kiss following that line, because subtlety isn’t part of this new world order.)

Then, a woman who appears to be breastfeeding under a soccer shirt, threatens, in French, “And if you disagree …”

And this is when the little boy gives us Cantona’s “au revoir” line before kicking a ball out of a soccer stadium, presumably because that’s what happens to the ignorant soccer hooligan. He gets kicked out for raging against gay men kissing or French ladies breastfeeding or somesuch. Later, a referee wearing a hijab instructs us, “Leave the hate,” before narrator girl explains, “You might as well join us because no one can stop us.”

Is that last line supposed to be … inspiring? That’s what a movie villain says, like if Bane took the form of Stan Marsh’s sister. Speaking of which, was this ad actually written by the creators of South Park as an elaborate prank? It’s certainly more convincing as an aggressive parody of liberals than as a sales pitch. Why, in anything other than a comedic setup, is a woman breastfeeding in a big-budget Euro Cup ad?

It’s tempting to fall into the pro-vanguardism template the boomers have handed down to us and sheepishly say, “I must be getting old, because this seems weird to me,” but let’s get real. You dislike this ad because it sucks. You are having a natural, human response to shitty art. This a hollow sermon from a priest whose sins were in the papers. Nobody is impressed by what Nike’s doing here. Nobody thinks Nike, a multinational famous for its sweatshops, is ushering us into an enlightened utopia. Sure, most media types are afraid to criticize the ad publicly. You might inspire suspicion that what you’re secretly against is men kissing and women breastfeeding, but nobody actually likes the stupid ad. No college kid would show it to a new friend he’s trying to impress, and it’s hard to envision a massive cohort of Gen Z women giving a shit about this ad either.

Now juxtapose that ad not just against the classics of the 1990s but also the 2000s products that preceded the Great Awokening. Compare it to another Nike Euro Cup advertisement, Guy Ritchie’s “Take It to the Next Level.”

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Here’s the problem, insofar as problems are pretended into existence by our media class: The ad is very, very male. Really, what we are watching here is a boyhood fantasy. Our protagonist gets called up to the big show, and next thing you know he’s cavorting with multiple ladies, and autographing titties to the chagrin of his date. He can be seen buying a luxury sports car and arriving at his childhood home in it as his father beams with pride. Training sessions show him either puking from exhaustion or playing grab-ass with his fellow soccer bros. This is jock life, distilled. Art works when it’s true and it’s true that this is a vivid depiction of a common fantasy realized.

Nike’s highly successful “Write the Future” ad (16,000 Likes, 257 Dislikes) works along similar themes.

…

The recent Olympic ads were especially heavy on cringe radical chic, and might have stood out less in this respect if the athletes themselves mirrored that tone on the big stage. Not so much in these Olympics. It seems as though Nike made the commercials in preparation for an explosion of telegenic activism, only to see American athletes mostly, quietly accept their medals, chomp down on the gold, and praise God or country. Perhaps you could consider Simone Biles bowing out of events due to mental health as a form of activism, but overall, the athletes basically behaved in the manner they would have back in 1996.

But Nike forged onwards anyway. This ad in celebration of the U.S. women’s basketball team made some waves, getting ripped in conservative media as the latest offense by woke capital.

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“Today I have a presentation on dynasties,” a pink-haired teenage girl tells us. “But I refuse to talk about the ancient history and drama. That’s just the patriarchy. Instead, I’m going to talk about a dynasty that I actually look up to. An all-women dynasty. Women of color. Gay women. Women who fight for social justice. Women with a jump shot. A dynasty that makes your favorite men’s basketball, football, and baseball teams look like amateurs.”

When she says, “That’s just the patriarchy,” the camera pans to a bust of (I think) Julius Caesar. At another point, the girl says, “A dynasty that makes Alexander the Great look like Alexander the Okay.” Fuck you, Classical Antiquity. Fuck you, fans of teams. You’re all just the patriarchy. Or something.

Nike could easily sell the successful American women’s basketball team without denigrating other teams, genders and ancient Mediterranean empires that have nothing to do with this. Could but won’t. The company now conveys an almost visceral need for women to triumph over men because … well, nobody really explains why, even if it has something to do with Undecided Whaling. In Nike’s tentpole Olympics ad titled “Best Day Ever,” the narrator fantasizes about the future, declaring, “The WNBA will surpass the NBA in popularity!” ​

…

There are theories on the emergence of woke capital, with many having observed that, following Occupy Wall Street, media institutions ramped up on census category grievance. The thinking goes that, in response to the threat of a real economic revolution, the power players in our society pushed identity politics to undermine group solidarity. Well, that was a fiendishly brilliant plan, if anyone actually hatched it.

I’m not so convinced, though, as I’m more inclined to believe that a lot of history happens by happenstance. If we’re to specifically analyze the Nike Awokening, there is a recent top-down element of a mandate for Undecided Whaling, but that mandate was preceded by a socially conscious middle class campaign within the company.

This isn’t unique to Nike, either. Given my past life covering the team that tech moguls root for, I’ve run into such people. They aren’t, by and large, ideological. Very few are messianically devoted to seeing the world through the intersectionality lens. They are, however, terrified of their employees who feel this way. The mid-tier labor force, this cohort who actually internalized their university teachings, are full of fervor and willing to risk burned bridges in favor of causes they deem righteous. The big bosses just don’t want a headline-making walkout on their hands, so they placate and mollify, eventually bending the company’s voice into language of righteousness.

…

All the guilt and atonement transference make for bad art. And so the ads suck. There’s no Machiavellian conspiracy behind the production. It’s just a combination of desperately wanting female market share and desperately wanting to move on from the publicized sins of a masculine past. So, to message its ambitions, the exhausted corporation leans on the employees with the loudest answers.

There’s a lot of interplay between Nike and Wieden+Kennedy when the former asks the latter for a type of ad, but the through line from both sides is a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Based on conversations with people who’ve worked in both environments, there’s a dearth of personnel who are deeply connected to sports. In place of a grounding in a subculture, you’re getting ideas from folks who went to nice colleges and trendy ad schools, the type of people who throw words like “patriarchy” at the screen to celebrate a gold medal victory. The older leaders, uneasy in their station and thus obsessed with looking cutting edge, lean on the younger types because the youth are confident. Unfortunately, that confidence is rooted in an ability to regurgitate liturgy, rather than generative genius. They’ve a mandate to replace a marred past, which they leap at, but they’re incapable of inventing a better future.

…

Ironically, Nike mattered a lot more in the days when its position was less dominant. Back when it had to really fight for market share, it made bold, genre-altering art. The ads were synonymous with masculine victory, plus they were cheekily irreverent. And so the dudes loved them. Today, Nike is something else. It LARPs as a grandiose feminist nonprofit as it floats aimlessly on the vessel Michael Jordan built long ago. Like Jordan himself, Nike is rich forever off what it can replicate never. Unlike Jordan, it now wishes to be known for anything but its triumphs. Nike once told a story and that story resonated with its audience. Now it’s decided that its audience is the problem. It wouldn’t shock you to learn that Carlos hated the new Nike ads I texted to him. His exact words were, “I don’t want fucking activism from a sweatshop monopoly.” He’ll still buy the gear, though, just not the narrative. Nike remains, but the story about itself has run out. Au revoir. 

[j2littleshits-blog]

Kourtney’s submission

Hahaha! I just saw her newest bee picture! My goodness she is certainly wonder woman! It’s so funny to me because with her first two she was always talking about how she was so busy and couldn’t do things.(1) The award show J, D and J went to she couldn’t attend because she had a baby and toddler at home. Her friend was setting up a walk for cancer but she couldn’t attend because she was pregnant (with T). Even D made a comment about how she couldn’t tweet as much because of little J.(2) But now all of a sudden they have all the time in the world for everything and anything. I wish I could look at her Instagram and see the sincerity behind it but I can’t. It’s just too much. Everything is too carefully photographed, too carefully worded, even the placement of the photos is carefully done.(3) She’s trying very hard to come off as the perfect wife/mother/whatever but all she’s doing is coming off as fake. Hmmm, I think the next picture will be her posing with honey and how important it is to either buy organic honey(4) or to ya know, make your own. That’s what all good people do ;-)!

I never disliked G, I wasn’t her biggest fan but I didn’t have a reason to not like her. I much preferred K’s rendition of the character but if we’re being completely honest I hated the character because of all the shit she did! Let me step back and talk about why I started to dislike G and I’ll get back to R_by in a few. When they started dating it didn’t bother me, I did find it a bit odd J was jumping into a relationship so soon after his failed engagement to long time girlfriend S.(5) But I figured he’s a big boy and knows what he’s doing in his personal life so I left it at that. But then as time went by I realized this girl lies about everything! Here are some of my favorite G lies…

Says she’s a HUGE Sea_awks fan, the boys had jerseys, she follows the team on twitter and they follow her. Yet when she goes to a Sea_awks game she wears the other teams (C_wboys) hat.(6) Yeah it’s your husbands team, but who cares? Is he that obsessive with them that you can’t wear your teams gear? Doubtful. Supports J’s charity (A Dogs Rescue, I’m sorry I can never remember the name of it)(7) and brags how “all his (J’s) and now all our dogs are adopted”. Huh. Funny because she purchased her two dogs and their new dog Arl_ came from a breeder. I’m sure they went through the proper channels when purchasing him but it’s still not adopting him which is something she had previously claimed they do. Says that she always wanted to be an actress, there was nothing she wanted more, that’s all she’s ever wanted. Goes on twitter and says her dream was to play soccer. According to their ‘people’ their engagement and whatever pictures were all stolen. Come to find out she tells Dress Like G ladies how the photos were released with her knowledge and it didn’t bother her they were seen by the public.(8) Last but not least I love love love how she was invited to do a con, agreed and then backed out due to an audition but somehow a rumor was spread that she and baby T were being threated with death threats.(9) Yet she never felt the need to squash that rumor.

They’re all little lies that are easily overlooked but when you listen to them all at once it’s like why? Why lie about such stupid things? Or just be so inconsistent with your stories. That has and always will be my biggest issue with her and I’ll never be able to take what she says to heart because I’m never sure if she’s being truthful or just lying again.

Back to the S_N issue and why I think she never mentioned the A_F campaign. This fandom treats her with kid gloves and honestly acts like she’s a fragile being! Now, to be honest, G portrays herself this way and so does J. She talks about (during her podcast) she would have panic attacks during auditions, she’s also said that she has trouble accepting criticism and felt bad that people disliked her R_by so much.(10) Now, I’m not actress, but it seems to me if you’re going into acting you’ve got to learn to accept these things and move on. J told everyone to be nice to her when she first got on twitter, thanks fans for being nice at cons and is constantly reminding people how grateful he is that we’re kind to her. You can’t say anything against her acting without the fandom coming down on you. You can’t have anything but a positive attitude towards her without the fandom getting upset.

Someone once said how the con people were sexist and how they wanted to petition to have G have a panel. The one lady from Dress Like G said that G told her that she doesn’t want to do a con because it’s J’s thing and she doesn’t want to take it away from him.(11) I think she didn’t want to talk about the A_F campaign because not only did she not want to make it about her but because she just didn’t want to receive any backlash.(12) People could claim she was only doing it because she wanted attention or something and that’s just BS. My god, you’re almost 40 years old and you care THAT much what a bunch of strangers think? Damn. You can’t even retweet something? Say thanks for the support? Nothing. Not a damn thing. But J says fuck it to those that hate on him for supporting her shit and does it anyway. It’s sad to say this but I think she has no backbone when it comes to this fandom. She just seems like she tip toes around as to not receive some sort of hate due to supporting her man. But she’ll proudly brag about her perfect life because it’s all for her lifestyle website.

She’s just incredibly self centered and I truly feel sorry for J. Somehow, someway she always makes things about her. Never once have I seen her make a post on any SM that wasn’t directly correlated to her. Even in her podcast she mentioned A_F and brought it back to her and how she’s been in therapy all her life to try and get her to express herself. I don’t know where she got this notion that the world revolves around her but that’s why she won’t bring up A_F. She doesn’t want the backlash and because she would much rather talk about herself. I’ve said it before and I stand by it, she has absolutely no part of her life that doesn’t include J.(13)

Hi again Kourtney! I’m a little scared you might be a huge G fan! LOL JK, it’s because you remember her things so well, which I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, FOREVER!

Here’s my little side notes (according to the numbers I added above) :

Ding ding ding!

Speaking of this, I’m still side-eyeing those beard stans who claimed that the beards are not at M.S’ wedding (19th November 2016) because they’re pregnant. For D I can give her a pass, but G? She was doing all the incredible-super-mama stuff at that time! & flying all the way to give birth in Seattle? Oh come on, they were not attending the wedding because they aren’t the Js’ plus one, simple as that.

Exactly! Here’s my 3rd post back when I made this blog in March. Since the very first moment, her photos are carefully set up.

LMFAO organic honey! I’m dying 😂

Me too. I’m not yet a tinhat that time and the news completely shocked me. Personally I like S a lot, now I’m happy she found her true love.

Remember the Obama & Romney thing? ;)

You were so close, it’s called A Dog’s Life Rescue :)

SO! MANY! TIMES! I lost count on exactly how many times her photos were “leaked” but later on her biggest stans will get a pass from her and be like “it’s ok to post, G doesn’t mind”. I’m sure y’all won’t forget the latest one- baby O. Same plan, same moves.

I’m not saying we should neutralize hate moves but I believe she doesn’t do cons for many reasons, death threats isn’t one of them.

I hate 3.0 since day1 because she acts nothing like 1.0. After knowing she aimed to act differently, I’m like “ok you ruined this character :-/ ”

It’s the only thing we can see the boys being happy and true to themselves. See what happened after Asylum 2015? I hope they do some contracts for this to prevent my cupcakes being too stressed! >:(

I think she didn’t mention it because she cares nothing and KNOWS NOTHING about this campaign, which was shown in the Winc_ester Bro radio quite well ;)

By this time can we all agree she only needs J when she needs attention? Or she only gets the attention when she mentions J? That’s quite legit to me ;)

Thanks for your submission again, Kourtney. Many of us like your submits a lot (Of course me too!), you always bring up old important things that we probably forgot, to remind us why we don’t like G, not only because she’s a beard but also because she’s not a likeable person AT ALL.