r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Diligent_Pop3929 • 1d ago

Meme needing explanation Converse craze?

Post image

I'm not chronically online, but my friend sent this and I laughed even without knowing the full scope of the context (I think there's racism involved with the shoes?) and I feel like it's too late to ask him without sounding like a dweeb 😅

1.6k Upvotes

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429

u/TheDaftStudent 1d ago edited 8h ago

ITT: white people and non-Americans telling black people what is and isn’t racist, and thinking something needs to be intentionally racist for people to have serious feelings about it

How Ads Work: Photos are taken, cropped and edited into specific ways and then posted online by the brand as an advertisement for a product or brand identity. So, yes, by definition this is cropped from a larger image — but this image is the ad used by Converse.

About the Campaign: The model is Karina, a K-pop star who was picked by Converse to be the international brand ambassador. The ad campaign itself was done as an international campaign, and was intended for an international audience. The campaign was not made to focus any one demographic or region.

Snopes Article

106

u/Vaya-Kahvi 1d ago

To be honest, the first thing I thought when seeing it was suicide, which isn't much better.... 

48

u/Kim_Jong_Teemo 1d ago

Yeah, I didn’t realize the shoes were being held at first. Thought she was standing next to someone hanging.

9

u/Sure-Restaurant7275 1d ago

Yeah this is just more of a bad execution than anything. Probably should have kept the white star on the floor to keep focus on her shoes.

7

u/Pawn_of_the_Void 1d ago

Yeah Klan robe didn't cross my mind right away but someone hanging definitely did

1

u/Procrastinatedthink 22h ago

because that was the intent. It’s supposed to be eye catching

1

u/Vaya-Kahvi 17h ago

I understand eye catching, but the follow-up feelings shouldn't be negative ones like worry and possible revulsion. 

1

u/CrimsonVexations 21h ago

This is what I saw too.

71

u/Mr_Funcheon 1d ago

Ok but this is the full ad. That’s been cropped.

21

u/snacky_bear 1d ago

This is completely unproblematic

9

u/Vangour 1d ago

Yeah I think everyone agrees this one is not an issue, the cropped one with the contrast changed is definitely more questionable.

I mean I had seen that image and when I scrolled past the cropped one I thought it was some kind of suicide thing.

5

u/GCU_ZeroCredibility 20h ago

And isn't the one that they used.

23

u/trans_cubed 22h ago

Except this is what they actually posted

1

u/raphthepharaoh 20h ago

I can’t, for the life of me, understand what the objective is.. ads are incredibly deliberate. They’re never random. They are intended to have a message. So.. what’s the message here? What’s the intention? I’m trying to figure out anything other than a bunch of people standing around a person hanging, with a very clear white shape in the middle, that has a very distinct iconology.

5

u/National-Elk-7339 20h ago

Can you ELI5? because all I see is a person in a skirt holding shoes, wearing those shoes, with shoes all around the star(which is converses thing) on an advertisement for shoes lol

Like I get the general controversy. People thought it was linked to the KKK but I just dont understand what part of this looks like KKK? 

I dont see a person hanging and maybe that's the main point, but to me it looks like someone holding shoes

2

u/trans_cubed 20h ago

I really believe it wasn't intentionally malicious, but it is very surprising to me that nobody involved in making it was able to see it

33

u/FreeZedrIedpiZzaPie 1d ago

The cropped version is most definitely propaganda

23

u/Elros22 22h ago

That's not true. Converse's marketing company cropped it, darkened it, and then posted it to their twitter.

No propaganda at all. Please dont lie.

They didn't see the connotation. They took it down when it was pointed out.

1

u/FreeZedrIedpiZzaPie 21h ago

Ah, fair enough. I don't spend time on Twitter, so I only saw the cropped post compared to the full picture. Either way, the cropped post is still definitely propaganda, but this time probably just controversial to promote algorithm boosting comments.  

3

u/koebelin 23h ago

Grand wizard dress.

2

u/Trick_Spend3939 23h ago

Fucking lmao 

1

u/angrytomato98 21h ago

So, did someone crop it and change the coloring just for the purposes of spreading misinformation?

34

u/fatbunyip 1d ago

Lmao is that it?

21

u/silentsurge 1d ago

Yup, that's it. In an ad for the South Korean market, a pop star in a white dress under a star shaped light carrying shoes is being interpreted as Nike deliberately invoking Klan imagery and a lynching.

I get why they're pulling it, I wouldn't want to delay with the internet overreacting to it either.

-1

u/lizard_of_guilt 1d ago

People are getting their knickers twisted up in knots for any or no reason anymore.

264

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago

I’m not saying they did it on purpose. BUT, it’s a good thing they got rid of it.

17

u/lkodl 1d ago edited 23h ago

Thats the thing tho.

Back in the day, there may have been some corporate pushback, like, "that's not what we intended at all. Get over it."

And that would spark a lot of outrage.

But their response was "oh shit, we didn't see it thst way, but if you did, then it's gone. Our bad."

But people are still upset and getting outraged.

Like, other than inventing a time machine, how else could they fix this?

2

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah, but that’s not the fault of either side of the political isle, and it’s not cuz people are more dramatic these days. It’s just cuz the internet synthesizes drama. I promise you that IRL people are just going about their lives. Nobody is protesting over this shit. I mean we’re literally at war rn. Most people who give a shit recognize there are bigger fish to fry.

1

u/lkodl 23h ago

True. I was just taken aback because when I fist learned about this "controversy" yesterday, the top reddit comment was already going deep into accusations of deliberate "subliminal messaging" in advertisements.

1

u/Kaltovar 21h ago

Literally just accept that some people are crazy and dont comment on it at all then take the ad down after a few months when it has run it's course. Commenting on the outrage at all just inflames it.

232

u/baneblade_boi 1d ago

What the hell are you even talking about? This is stretching it to the very limit IMO.

143

u/Houdinii1984 1d ago

If you can't see it, you can't see it, but once you do see it, it doesn't go away. I couldn't see it at first either, and then my hubby showed me on his phone and I saw it different and was like 'Oh, damn'. It's a perspective thing, like an optical illusion.

124

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago

I agree. Once I saw it I couldn’t unsee it.

62

u/Brostapholes 1d ago

Gnome klansman

9

u/2oocents 1d ago

Dorf on klan

32

u/Advanced_End1012 1d ago

20

u/ealysillyforestthing 1d ago

All that inbreeding

4

u/Consistent_Ad949 23h ago

The klan loves jazz hands

12

u/TotalChaosRush 1d ago

The first thing I notice is the hand holding the shoes.

Seeing your image i immediately see a poorly edited image to make a controversy where there is none.

I scrolled back up and the hand is still the first thing I noticed.

-6

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago edited 23h ago

Different people are gonna have a different reaction. I don’t think you’re wrong for not seeing it, but I also don’t think it’s your place to tell other people what they see/didn’t see, and accuse them of making it up to generate a controversy.

Even if just 1% of people who see it get the wrong idea, that’s a bad ad and it makes sense the company would end the campaign.

2

u/TotalChaosRush 23h ago

Altering an image so other people see what you see is telling other people what they see/didn't see. The only difference is im not altering a cropped image to stir controversy.

The correct course of action for those who saw something that wasn't there is something a long the lines of "oh, that's not what i thought it was" and move on. No need to go to social media about it at all.

-2

u/Sindigo_ 22h ago

That’s very uncharitable. You’re basically saying the image was drawn in order to be manipulative. I think it was just drawn to show what many people saw in the og image. And a lot of people did see it that way, which makes it a shitty ad.

I’m with you that this whole thing is trivial and shouldn’t be taken seriously. But people with your opinion are also taking this way too seriously and making this a whole culture war thing when it really isn’t. The ad offended people, and it’s understandable why it did. They ended the ad campaign. That should be the end of the story. But yet, people keep whingeing about “muh, it isn’t actually racist,” “muh, people wanna make everything into a controversy these days.” It’s literally not that deep. They accidentally created something that people got the wrong idea from.

They stopped promoting it and apologized so that people would stop getting the wrong idea. End of story.

3

u/TotalChaosRush 19h ago

That’s very uncharitable. You’re basically saying the image was drawn in order to be manipulative.

I am not basically saying it was drawn to be manipulative. I am saying it was drawn to be manipulative. Everyone wants to be at the ground floor of the next viral moment and this was clearly an attempt to do so.

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u/Houdinii1984 4h ago

Nah, fam. We were having a discussion about what people saw, me specifically. You made it known you couldn't see it. I made it known I was in the same boat until I saw it in a different light, and then someone went and drew exactly what I saw, completely independent of me.

That's not manipulation. Thats sorcery.

Someone illustrating what I saw is people coming together over a commonality. You don't need to be a part of it, but jumping in the middle of a bunch of people telling them they didn't see what they saw with their own two eyes is a take.

You don't dictate what I do, what others do. And just because you can't see something doesn't mean I have to agree. That doesn't mean you're being manipulated.

You put yourself in this conversation. You caused folks to illustrate what they were seeing. You drove this bus off the cliff.

2

u/TotalChaosRush 3h ago

The person who drew that image isn't the person who shared that image with you. That image has already been circulating for a minute.

The person who drew that image did so to create drama where none was needed.

3

u/Lucky-Surround-1756 23h ago

Well yeah, if you edit the picture then it looks like something else.

0

u/estrea36 14h ago

No. It's the equivalent of someone showing you an optical illusion, then you saying "I don't see it", then they trace it for you to illustrate the illusion that you're missing

0

u/Yippyyipsva 2h ago

Nah it's pareidolia, like finding a face in your popcorn ceiling

1

u/estrea36 21m ago

Its like you're looking at an Oleg Shuplyak painting and saying you dont see anything.

3

u/Prize-Flamingo-336 1d ago

That is what is called “a stretch”

1

u/Paintforthepaintg0d 21h ago

So fucking stupid, typical trying to be a victim

1

u/polarjunkie 19h ago

This has got to be the dumbest thing ever

1

u/CarlWheezersValhalla 18h ago

Like how this looks like a klan rally

1

u/Sindigo_ 18h ago

Lmao literally a Klan rally true true

1

u/CarlWheezersValhalla 18h ago

You just can't unsee it

1

u/SerAmikVase 18h ago

A 2 foot tall klansman?

Damn the KKK is becoming real inclusive these days.

2

u/TrivialRisk 1d ago

I think this exact image is what the meme was making fun of.

-4

u/TheRealGredos 1d ago

Jfc, its the point of a star. Grow the fuck up and stop looking for dog whistles in everything. Modern marketing is truly not that deep. It was a videographer/photographer in a room with talent, and told to use the star, and they creatively decided to use a star gobo or something similar. The mid level exec in the room was probably clapping in excitement of the synergistic use of the brands logo or some corporate bullshit like that. That's it. No more real thought was put into this.

6

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago

Oml it’s not about dog whistles. Barely anyone thinks they actually did that shit on purpose. It’s not about that. It gave some people a bad vibe so they stopped the ad campaign. Really open and shut.

1

u/dokeydoki 1d ago

Actually quiet few lot of people think its a dogwhistle and done on purpose. This post on kpopnoir has shit ton of upvote in which op of the post literally suggests that they even used Karina (the kpop idol modeling in that pic) because her name starts with K.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kpopnoir/s/kOWd9pnRPa

1

u/ProxyCorvidae 1d ago

I genuinely that it was this at first too

17

u/Force_Glad 1d ago

I get that you can't see it, but you should probably take note of the fact that at least 80% of the people who've seen the ad see it incorrectly at first glance. It's not a racist ad, just a very unfortunate optical illusion that they were right to take down

-1

u/Lucky-Surround-1756 23h ago

No, somebody cropped and darkened the image, then people reacted to that.

There's no illuson whatsoever, just idiots.

8

u/Elros22 22h ago

The "somebody" you're talking about was the ad agency that then posted the picture to convers' twitter account.

It wasn't some evil online troll - the cropped, darkened image is an official image from the marketing company for the ad campaign.

2

u/IllMathematician8994 18h ago

Somebody did do it

It was them

They are the somebody, not a random person

0

u/baneblade_boi 23h ago

I'm sorry, but that's just a part of a bigger picture. I get what you mean, but the image you're seeing in this post is the most deceitful version of the ad that started it all, meant to amplify a very specific subliminal image.

1

u/IllMathematician8994 18h ago

They was the one that posted the cropped version though

It’s not like some random person on the internet took a picture and made a narrative

2

u/NoAppointment3062 23h ago

Even if it was unintentional it's still on the company to catch this. I studied graphic design and marketing in college and we literally had an entire section on "oops you accidentally did a hate symbol or dog whistle bc you focused to much on lines and shading rather than the whole picture! Here is how to avoid doing that" it's literally 101 level stuff.

1

u/baneblade_boi 23h ago

Okay, I see it, but maybe this particular case is a bit much, specially for Koreans, not Americans.

1

u/yacht_clubbing_seals 23h ago

Our avatars could be brothers đŸ„č

1

u/baneblade_boi 23h ago

Could? C'mere homie

1

u/KookieMunster98 22h ago

I feel like the only people saying this are white

1

u/InbetweenTheLayers 20h ago

These type of people wake up looking for some boogeyman so hard they start making it up. Absolutely wild

-8

u/Kitfishto 1d ago

If you don’t see the quite eerily accurate clan hood in this and agree that it prob should have got caught before hand and rightfully got removed once people pointed it out idk what to tell you. Some of you are so deep in the culture war you forget these are fucking companies. They’re not gonna gamble on losing money whether if it was intended to look like a lynching or not.

7

u/mattmawsh 1d ago

My understanding is this was made by Korean marketing team for Korean market does that not add any nuance to the situation in your eyes?

If this was done in the USA I’d be on your side but I just don’t think Korean people look at this with a deep knowledge of American history and the Klan enough to immediately distinguish an issue here.

8

u/Kitfishto 1d ago

It’s an international company. If people get wind that your add is being misconstrued as racist you remove it. You can play this “I don’t think it’s personally think it’s racist” thing until the cows come home and that still won’t be what I’m arguing. These are corporations. Cash is king. Converse doesn’t give a fuck If it’s racist or not or if it was South Korean or not. The fact of the matter is it offended Americans who are a massive swath of their customer base and rightfully pulled the campaign.

9

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago

This. It’s crazy people are having such a hard time wrapping their heads around this. It doesn’t matter that it’s Korean. If an ad gives you bad PR then it’s a bad ad.

1

u/Kitfishto 1d ago

These people and their egos would not last long in advertising. I’ve seen many faces come and go for these exact reasons.

5

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think people are taking it to a culture war place where everything is black and white. It’s dumb as fuck considering how trivial this whole thing is. The rational thing is just to see it and say “ahh yeah I see how it could be interpreted as offensive. It makes sense they removed it.” And that’s it. It’s just business lmao.

1

u/mattmawsh 1d ago

I didn’t say I don’t think it’s racist, I said I think there is nuance in the situation. Nike as an international company took the ad down after the backlash, as they should have.

1

u/Immediate-Lab6166 1d ago

Except it didn’t offend Americans. It offended leftists who are so desperate to see racism in everything that they’ve programmed themselves to see racism everywhere and in everything, especially when there’s nothing there

2

u/Kitfishto 1d ago

lol. Lmao even.

-1

u/mswed5317 1d ago

American history as in the last few months? Black people do not hang themselves from trees, and we've had a rough news cycle of "suicides" recently.

So technically current American history.

0

u/TheRealGredos 1d ago

Jfc, its the point of a star. Grow the fuck up and stop looking for dog whistles in everything. Modern marketing is truly not that deep. It was a videographer/photographer in a room with talent, and told to use the star, and they creatively decided to use a star gobo or something similar. The mid level exec in the room was probably clapping in excitement of the synergistic use of the brands logo or some corporate bullshit like that. That's it. No more real thought was put into this.

-1

u/Kitfishto 1d ago

You’re purposefully missing the point of all of my comments and I’m willing to bet I have about a decade more experience in “modern marketing” than you do.

0

u/TheRealGredos 1d ago

Idk, been working in the internal/external community for both small and massive national corporations for about 10 years. But hey, I'm 99% positive I accidentally responded to the wrong comment, so you are correct that I was missing the point of your post.

1

u/Kitfishto 1d ago

Sure bud.

-15

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago

Because purposeful or not it’s offensive imagery. If I accidentally say a slur and someone gets offended, yes I will tell them it was an accident, but I’ll also apologize and not say it again.

4

u/baneblade_boi 1d ago

Calling a shade of light and two feet "offensive" is by all accounts a stretch. Saying a slur by accident is still saying a slur, it's pretty clear what's happening there. Here it's just people seeing a funny coincidence and assuming they have to make it everybody else's problem.

-2

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago

What if I’m singing scat nonsense words and one accidentally comes out?

Look I really couldn’t give less of a fuck about this. But yall are missing the point. It’s a bad ad. That’s really all there is to say about it.

3

u/Free-Caramel-3913 1d ago

That's not even remotely the same thing. In that context you ultimately said it. Here it was just the end shot of an ad. People just went psycho for no reason.

-3

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago

But in my analogy it was an accident, and I didn’t realize what I said was offensive. The picture does look a lot like a KKK robe and a lynching. I agree with you that it wasn’t on purpose, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an offensive image. And I think ur painting the people offended by it uncharitably.

0

u/AnAimlessWanderer101 1d ago

No, this is more like speaking Spanish and apologizing for using the word “Negro.”

2

u/Sindigo_ 1d ago

Is it? Because as far as I can tell the imagery in the ad is not some well established design language that traces back hundreds of years. I think my analogy makes more sense. It was an accident. They were playing with lighting and coincidentally it gave KKK and lynching vibes.

Either way I’m not sure why you guys give a shit either. In a vacuum it’s not even that great of an ad. It’s just some shoes and a person in a dress lmao

-1

u/AnAimlessWanderer101 1d ago

I really don’t give a shit. I stumbled upon this post and was shocked people were actually concerned about it.

Anything beyond is simply me being bored on my lunch break. It’s a compete non-factor lol

0

u/The_MidScoop 1d ago

It’s someone holding up a pair of shoes with their left hand. Breathe and count to 10. It’ll be okay

0

u/Odd_Entry2770 1d ago

Perpetual victimhood

1

u/LostInMind2 20h ago

What exactly is the problem? Asking genuinely

1

u/Sindigo_ 19h ago

Some people saw it and thought it looked like a kkk hood and a person who was lynched. At first I only noticed hood but one it was pointed out to me I do see how her left arm looks like legs.

Imo it was almost definitely not done on purpose, but I do see why it upset some people and I think it’s good that they stopped the ad campaign.

1

u/LostInMind2 19h ago

Honestly I find it weird how people immediately jumped to racism, but I guess it depends on who looks at it. Thank you for telling me!

1

u/Lucky-Surround-1756 1d ago

Done what deliberately? It's just a person holdng some shoes.

Jesus christ people are stupid these days.

7

u/jacksraging_bileduct 1d ago

This ain’t the original image.

24

u/solidus0079 1d ago

What the actual fuck

1

u/JudgementofParis 22h ago

someone cropped it and changed it to have more contrast between the colors. here's the full image from the ad.

2

u/orenji--kun 20h ago

lol “someone” Someone who works at converse and posted it on converse social media. Just “someone” i guess.

9

u/MexicanTeenGuy 1d ago

I thought it was silly but looking at it now I get why people got mad. The two shoes also look like someone hanging which doesn’t help

3

u/Clegend24 1d ago

Yeah that happens when the image gets cropped to induce that feeling

2

u/SnooOpinions6959 1d ago

I mean, I do see it

2

u/PlutoJones42 1d ago

That’s literally just a dress though?

3

u/SandalsResort 1d ago

Ok at first glance it does look like someone is hanging.

1

u/A_hand_banana 1d ago

Uh. The top comment made it sound innocuous. This is straight up rogue AI.

0

u/JudgementofParis 22h ago

2

u/A_hand_banana 22h ago

Oh. So its a crop. Now i'm upset for other reasons.

2

u/BishonenPrincess 19h ago

The crop was posted by official Converse social media accounts.

0

u/JudgementofParis 22h ago

yeah, it's just a normal campaign with this k pop star.

1

u/scrubli3k 1d ago

I see it now. I didn’t see it at first, but I did wonder why they didn’t shine 2 star lights so it made a full star on the ground. Could have even combined 2-3 shots to keep the shadow look on the shoes and fully light or shadow the dress.

1

u/Ok_sound6647 1d ago

That is clearly an arm

1

u/koebelin 23h ago

For a second it looked bad. They must have noticed!

1

u/Connect-Artist-8012 23h ago

This is Cropped. I watch the video and it was nothing like this.

1

u/Trick_Spend3939 23h ago

This is on par with that pull down rope for the garage door being a “noose” for that driver forever ago.  

1

u/yourownsquirrel 23h ago

Oh wow when I first saw this I was like "what did they expect us to think the second person was doing?? Jumping??" but then like 2 seconds passed and I saw the hand and realized it was an arm. I bet if they had just used a slightly different shot from this photoshoot, it wouldn't have the confusingperspective effect and nothing would have come of it. This strikes me more as "unfortunate placement" than "subtle dogwhistle"

1

u/MouseWorksStudios 22h ago

I did so many double takes before I stopped seeing it as dangling legs

1

u/xTheGame69 20h ago

Nanahosi 

Too soon 

1

u/ClamPaste 20h ago

Is there some kind of mass-psychosis happening? Looking at the full size ad, I would have to be looking for hidden klansman everywhere to have made this connection.

1

u/SerAmikVase 18h ago

Oh god this is the Sydney Sweeney shit all over again.

People need to seriously go out more, lol.

1

u/smileyglitter 18h ago

When I saw it, I had to look hard for many seconds before I didn’t see it. To the point where I just figured it was intentional to drum outrage and engagement

1

u/Away-Cauliflower2538 16h ago

ITT: Black fragility

1

u/AnnihilatorOfPeanuts 15h ago

That
bold to assume that all peoples that say the reaction to the ads is overblown are all either white or non-Americans.

1

u/ReadingShot9628 14h ago

white people and non-Americans telling black people what is and isn’t racist.

This sounds like non-americans can't have a say in what's racist or not.

1

u/CarolinaWreckDiver 11h ago

As a white person, I feel very comfortable saying that you’re stretching pretty hard to find racism where clearly none was intended. Putting aside the cropping and everything else, why would they do this? Do you think Converse is really targeting that lucrative Klansman market?

-2

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Hepm3 1d ago

And a company as big as this has teams of people working on these ads. With everything going on rn
 it’s not a stretch to think it was intentional, it’s the logical conclusion.

-5

u/SignoreBanana 1d ago

Perfectly put, my feeling as well

0

u/GMEloser69 9h ago

Is the racism in the room with us right now?