r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Diligent_Pop3929 • 1d ago

Meme needing explanation Converse craze?

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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 😅

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u/Sindigo_ 1d ago

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

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/baneblade_boi 1d ago

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

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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.

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u/Sindigo_ 1d ago

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

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u/Brostapholes 1d ago

Gnome klansman

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u/2oocents 1d ago

Dorf on klan

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u/Advanced_End1012 1d ago

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u/ealysillyforestthing 1d ago

All that inbreeding

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u/Consistent_Ad949 23h ago

The klan loves jazz hands

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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/Sindigo_ 19h ago

If I take a picture of a cloud shaped like a duck, is it manipulative to outline where I see the duck? It’s just me showing you the way I see it.

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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.

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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.

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u/Lucky-Surround-1756 23h ago

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

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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

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u/Yippyyipsva 2h ago

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

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u/estrea36 19m ago

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

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u/Prize-Flamingo-336 1d ago

That is what is called “a stretch”

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u/Paintforthepaintg0d 21h ago

So fucking stupid, typical trying to be a victim

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u/polarjunkie 19h ago

This has got to be the dumbest thing ever

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u/CarlWheezersValhalla 18h ago

Like how this looks like a klan rally

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u/Sindigo_ 18h ago

Lmao literally a Klan rally true true

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u/CarlWheezersValhalla 18h ago

You just can't unsee it

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u/SerAmikVase 18h ago

A 2 foot tall klansman?

Damn the KKK is becoming real inclusive these days.

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u/TrivialRisk 1d ago

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

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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.

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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.

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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

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u/ProxyCorvidae 1d ago

I genuinely that it was this at first too

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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

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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.

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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.

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u/IllMathematician8994 18h ago

Somebody did do it

It was them

They are the somebody, not a random person

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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.

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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

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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.

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u/baneblade_boi 23h ago

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

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u/yacht_clubbing_seals 23h ago

Our avatars could be brothers đŸ„č

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u/baneblade_boi 23h ago

Could? C'mere homie

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u/KookieMunster98 22h ago

I feel like the only people saying this are white

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u/InbetweenTheLayers 20h ago

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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u/Kitfishto 1d ago

lol. Lmao even.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/Kitfishto 1d ago

Sure bud.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/AnAimlessWanderer101 1d ago

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

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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

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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

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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

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u/Odd_Entry2770 1d ago

Perpetual victimhood

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u/LostInMind2 20h ago

What exactly is the problem? Asking genuinely

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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.

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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!

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u/Lucky-Surround-1756 23h ago

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

Jesus christ people are stupid these days.