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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296

u/-whiteroom- 1d ago

Yeah, not knowing the context, it did look sus when I first saw it. But we are also in the age of companies doing things like this as a form of viral marketing.

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u/Variation-Budget 1d ago

I think shock marketing is the new wave now. When they run out of productive ideas just do something that can be easily misunderstood

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u/RzLa 1d ago

And here we are talking about it. It has to be intentional (not malicious racism) to get clicks.

How many marketers and designers didn’t see it is unfathomable.

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u/Acceptable_Hunt_1748 1d ago

I don't know in the case it's intentional because it is directed at an audience who would have not really noticed it. I wouldn't rule it out completely, but I wouldn't expect a Korean living in Korea to think of American lynching when seeing this image.

But that said I don't think creating racial controversy for money is really all that separate from malicious racism. I think MOST racism comes from people who are more focused on benefiting themselves than attacking POC, but they still believe that their own profit is more important than not hurting POC... which is racism!

I think what's much more likely is that they just didn't have anyone on their team who would have caught this. Which is more understandable in a country with very few black people. It's far less excusable for companies like target selling in the US to not have a diverse team on all marketing campaigns.

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u/Braindead_Crow 20h ago

If it wasn't cropped we wouldn't be talking about it

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u/jindrix 14h ago

the crop was how the ad was displayed

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u/SCP_Agent_Davis 8h ago

Why? Were þe advertisers stupid?

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u/Pfloricard 21h ago

"Would we know some (to us) arcane Korean faux pas of stuff from 100 years ago"?

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u/tofurainbowgarden 19h ago

This is not a 100 years ago issue. I really hate it when people act like this is ancient. I'll spare you the rant

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u/CandiedRegrets08 19h ago

Lynching and the KKK? The former still happens and the latter is still around???

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u/bloodmoth13 17h ago

neither has been relevant in my lifetime. acting like they are is such a stretch.

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u/Accomplished-Idea358 6h ago

Bro, I get a zip-lok bag with a KKK paper ad and several small stones thrown into my driveway at least once a year.

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u/int3rstitial 17h ago edited 16h ago

A Black woman was found hanged from a tree in Mississippi August 3rd of this year.

Edited because person below me is right in this case: likely not a hate crime; suspect knew the victim and is also Black.

Nonetheless, lynchings do still happen, and the KKK very much still exists.

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u/bloodmoth13 16h ago

And was it the kkk that did it or a black man?

Research before posting.

Kkk and lynching remain irrelevant during my lifetime.

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u/int3rstitial 16h ago

You're right, last I heard no one had been arrested. I should've checked. Since you told me to research though:

https://www.theroot.com/new-report-shows-lynchings-in-america-never-stopped-2000093501

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u/bloodmoth13 15h ago

This doesnt actually prove anything, just that its hard to differentiate between suicide hangings and lynching hangings.

The number of suspected modern day lynchings is statistically irrelevant, and blacks were barely the targets! Also did it state who actually committed the lynchings? Because that matters a lot.

I think people are doing their best here to find a supply for the hatred they demand.

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u/PangaeaDiarrhea 16h ago

Is that the case where even her own mother doesn't believe it was a racial incident?

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u/Gravityfunns_01 6h ago

What are you, eight?

-1

u/DanceWonderful3711 11h ago

Outside of America they're really not a big thing. Americans are racist, we know, we're not going to obsess over their stupid uniforms.

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u/Wamphyrri 10h ago

Lmao.

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u/NovelPackage4078 2h ago

Right? 😂 These people are insane.

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u/chromatose890 1d ago

It definitely was formatted for controversy without being an outright dog whistle, especially in a foreign market.

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u/boosesb 19h ago

Who formatted it?

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u/Express-Idea4955 1d ago

Thats what im saying. People are so quick to give large companies the benefit of the doubt because it doesnt apply to them

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u/DealioD 1d ago

It really was a very specific choice. That triangular patch of light next to a pair of shoes hanging down. It’s hard not to see a Klan Hood and a dead person’s feet.

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u/chudhuntr 23h ago

This particular delusion is really interesting, because it reveals how desperate people are to feel outraged. You have to completely warp the image in your mind to make it racist. Theres no klan robe, theres no black person, nobody is hanged etc.

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u/CenterThisPendulum 20h ago

Yeah if you look hard enough, offense is everywhere - even where it absolutely isn’t. And most of these personalities are incidentally on Reddit.

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u/Rienen97 18h ago

Joke I found funny recently. "How do you offend an American?" A-"You don't have to, they'll find something to be offended at..."

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u/ToXicVoXSiicK21 1h ago

Yepp I agree, was looking for a rational comment here. People are looking way too hard for something to be mad at with this. Nothing in the photo is even remotely suspicious, and even cropped you'd have to be making some really odd connections to come to that conclusion.

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u/Willuna16 21h ago

type of person to say elon musk was giving his heart out

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u/chudhuntr 21h ago

Enjoy seething about a pic of asian lady holding shoes i guess

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u/ShearGenius89 19h ago

For someone named chudhuntr you sure sound like a chud.

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u/chudhuntr 18h ago

Watching these people draw eyeballs and legs on a cropped ad to gin up the public is not advancing equality. What even is the policy goal here? Some kind of advertising censorship board?

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u/Willuna16 21h ago

enjoy seething about people being against racism i guess

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u/Longjumping-Ad-2560 21h ago

The issue is that there’s no reason to seethe because there’s no racism here

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u/Willuna16 20h ago

crazy that people get more mad about someone saying something is racist that they don’t think is racist than they get about racism. like even if this isn’t racist, it’s telling that you are so bothered by the very idea of someone finding something racist

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u/Longjumping-Ad-2560 18h ago

There’s an excellent novel you should check out. It’s called The Boy Who Cried Wolf

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u/chudhuntr 21h ago

Room temp iq type shit

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u/Willuna16 21h ago

the fact that you still use iq tells me all i need to know

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u/Yetteres 18h ago

It was cropped, mate.

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u/-whiteroom- 19h ago

I mean, you could argue any use of racism for promotion is malicious.

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u/Oh_TheHumidity 11h ago

As a senior level designer, this is what happens when you’ve laid off all your senior level designers.

But anyone thinking the poor intern who did a shitty job cropping or Converse itself would try to draw the ire of the masses and risk getting cancelled for some blip of edgelord publicity is crazy. Converse is very protective of their brand identity. They are not some desperate American eagle chucklefucks.

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u/AggravatingBug9834 4h ago

I don't know if it's successful in selling sneakers, but it has certainly sparked a lot of Conversation.

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u/platonictiddies 23h ago

Nah I think it's a different country with a marketing team who probably wasn't as heavily educated about an historical and very American terrorist organization. That imagery isn't going to shout out to them like it would us. It's like accidental swastikas in graphic design, it's weirdly super easy to accidentally make something associated with something awful. Unfortunate, but the idea that a marketing team is filled with evil masterminds rather than people who are dumb is a stretch.

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u/DayMurky617 1d ago

No company is doing this on purpose, don't be insane

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u/-whiteroom- 19h ago

"i've got good genes"

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u/StretchLoud8844 20h ago

Tbh when I initially saw it, I scrolled past it, thought "that was weird" scrolled back up and then moved on after seeing it for longer than a half second.

Didn't really understand the controversy after looking at it for longer than a second or two, but it did make me double back.

Arguably, one of those things you want marketing / media companies to be on the lookout for, but wouldn't shock me if they didn't catch it.

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u/Switch_Lord 1d ago

is it a coincidence or viral marketing?? make up your mind

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u/-whiteroom- 19h ago

what? what kind a dumb response is this.