Nicolas Weissenberg
Staff Writer
Recently Nike dropped their Dream Crazy ad which is part of the 30th anniversary “Just Do It” slogan campaign. The ads chief spokesperson, Colin Kaepernick, is most known for kneeling during the national anthem at various football games which started in 2016. Even though the ad featured many other athletes from Nyjah Huston to Lebron James, the spotlight was on Kaepernick. Some people were furious that he was in the advertisement while others were inspired. Those that were angered went onto social media to express their feelings.
On the internet, there are plenty of videos showing people burning their own Nike shoes as a type of retaliation towards the company. This reprisal began shortly after the ad was dropped. Whether it be in a barbeque pit or on the front lawn, people have managed to destroy their shoes in many different ways. Some people poured gas on their shoes as others just lit it and slowly let it burn.Although Nike’s market value has gone up by 6 billion, people burning their shoes still affects the company.
“Honestly I thought it was just, in a lack of better terms, idiotic because they’re giving money to the cooperation anyways.They’re just burning shoes when they could be donating it to so many other places or different people like veterans that don’t have shelter, food, or clothing or shoes to wear,” Senior Robbie Smith said.
Not only do 300 million children around the world not have shoes, but there are also 1.5 mil- lion veterans that live in poverty in the United States. Moreover, in the midst of all this hardship people are burning good shoes. As Smith stated, donating those shoes could have helped a lot of people that are struggling, but instead, they turned into ash.
Although some people were resentful of the advertisement, there are still many people that felt inspired by it. Countless people found the ad very inspiring because of Kaepernick’s role in it. Though he wasn’t the main focus of the ad, Kaepernick managed to inspire people as did the other athletes who made appearances. Considering that Nike is such a large cooperation, a lot of people have been affected by the advertisement.
“I found the ad very inspiring because he’s standing up for what he believes and he even got fired,” sophomore Carlos Masso said.
Since Kaepernick became a free agent in 2017 no team has offered him a contract. He also filed a grievance because he suspected that the owners of the teams colluded so he could not get signed. Even though he hasn’t gotten signed on to a team yet, he still stands for what he was protesting for and now that he has a job with Nike he is no longer unemployed.This is very inspiring because of the way he persevered his beliefs even though he was practically fired from the NFL for doing so.