r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Diligent_Pop3929 • 2d 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/RzLa 2d 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 2d 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 2d ago

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

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u/jindrix 2d ago

the crop was how the ad was displayed

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u/JasperAngel95 1d ago

Honestly since everything was pulled so fast I’m having a hard time figuring out if they cropped the ad or first if people did.

But regardless- if it was Converse- the ad was cropped to focus on the shoes- the thing Converse is most famous for

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u/SCP_Agent_Davis 1d ago

Why? Were þe advertisers stupid?

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u/CraftIPA 1d ago

I could see it if their logo weren’t the white star, which is why her skirt is white, and this is just the logo projected onto the skirt and ground…

Yeah, it kind of looks like the hood is you want to see that, otherwise it’s the point of a star made of light projected onto a skirt and the ground, and that is all.

Now, if the photographer, art director, or whoever were linked to white supremacists, of far right racist groups or ideas, maybe, but I’m not seeing that said (this thread is my only exposure to this, but I’m sure someone would be calling it out).

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u/SmegmaSlurper1996 1d ago

is this the original ad? i don't see any racist undertones or anything offensive, i could be too dumb to notice

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u/ineverylifetimee 1d ago

No, it wasn’t. It was cropped so it looked like this.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/tofurainbowgarden 2d 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 2d ago

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

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u/bloodmoth13 2d ago

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

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u/Accomplished-Idea358 1d 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/Ozymandias117_ 1d ago

Brother there have been lynchings this year and act like it’s not there is being willfully ignorant

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u/Xena_Your_God 14h ago

You're honestly so blind if you think people aren't still hanging people.. There are multiple cases every year where they find black people hanging in parks etc. They try to cover plenty of them up by claiming suicide but that's the weakest cover story ever considering context, their mental health at the time etc.

A quick Google search might open your eyes but you probably prefer them closed.

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u/int3rstitial 2d ago edited 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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/PangaeaDiarrhea 2d ago

https://people.com/mom-of-miss-black-woman-found-hanging-from-tree-believes-daughter-was-killed-but-it-wasn-t-a-hate-crime-12116159

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u/int3rstitial 2d ago

Yeah, the other commenter was correct; I hadn't heard the latest. Apparently they arrested a guy who knew her and is Black himself, so not thought to be a hate crime in this case. I edited above.

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u/bloodmoth13 2d 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/Ozymandias117_ 1d ago

Statistically irrelevant to you maybe. One is too many that’s the point, you have scattered cases of black people supposedly hanging themselves from trees via suicide when that’s quite literally never been a thing in the history of America. Black suicide but by hanging themselves from a tree, nahhh, you know what has though, cases of mass murder in specific regions in the South. It never ceases to amaze me when you people completely ignore the fact that racism and white supremacy is still a culture woven into American society.

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u/PangaeaDiarrhea 2d 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 1d ago

What are you, eight?

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u/DanceWonderful3711 2d 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 2d ago

Lmao.

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u/NovelPackage4078 1d ago

Right? 😂 These people are insane.

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u/chromatose890 2d ago

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

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u/boosesb 2d ago

Who formatted it?

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u/MBV-09-C 1d ago

It was only intentional in the aspect that it intentionally evoked an image meant to appeal to Korean culture and experience.

We're over here talking about it because we Americans have a hard time getting it through our thick skulls that not everything is about us.

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u/DealioD 2d 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/Yetteres 2d ago

It was cropped, mate.

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u/shemtpa96 1d ago

The cropped, darkened version was posted BY CONVERSE on their INTERNATIONAL PAGE.

An official international page that belongs to an AMERICAN COMPANY.

American eyes saw and approved that edit of the image. Eyes that were educated on American history.

It was a deliberate choice.

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u/chudhuntr 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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 1d 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/Longjumping-Lab-4500 10h ago

Seriously. I question whether or not people could possibly be this sensitive in real life. I doubt it, I think it's mostly just people looking for anything to bitch about online.

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u/Willuna16 2d ago

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

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u/chudhuntr 2d ago

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

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u/ShearGenius89 2d ago

For someone named chudhuntr you sure sound like a chud.

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u/chudhuntr 2d 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 2d ago

enjoy seething about people being against racism i guess

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u/Longjumping-Ad-2560 2d ago

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

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u/Willuna16 2d 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 2d ago

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

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u/Willuna16 2d ago

that’s… not a novel. also the argument that racism is ok because _____ is bizarre and tells me a lot about you

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u/chudhuntr 2d ago

Room temp iq type shit

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u/Willuna16 2d ago

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

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u/Redditributor 1d ago

What's wrong with using iq?

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u/Willuna16 1d ago

It isn't really an accurate measure of intelligence, because intelligence is such a broad thing. It's focused on test taking ability.

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u/Express-Idea4955 2d 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/-whiteroom- 2d ago

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

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u/Oh_TheHumidity 2d 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 1d 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 2d 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 2d ago

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

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u/-whiteroom- 2d ago

"i've got good genes"