News

This Viral Twitter Thread About Cutting Up Nike Socks Is All Types Of Genius

You may have heard by now that people in (mostly middle) America are fond of destroying expensive products purchased with their own hard-earned money as a form of comically puerile and ultimately ineffective protest. You may also have recently read that the latest manifestation of this is the carnage of Nike products—burning Nike sneakers (mostly Air Monarchs lol), cutting the Nike swoosh off pairs of socks, etc.

The people intent on ruining their own gear are doing so to protest Nike’s new ad campaign starring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose peaceful protest of police brutality against POC disproportionally infuriated the President of the United States and, as a result, his many supporters.

Nike wasn’t one of them. Their new campaign, released last Monday evening, featured a powerful image of Kaepernick overlaid with the words “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”

Trump supporters, willingly oblivious to the notion that A) Kap and teammate Eric Reid chose to kneel after giving it much thought, so as to show reverence to veterans and B) peaceful protest is a constitutional right and a cornerstone of the Civil Rights movement, instead chose to set fire to their own belongings. To each his own! It’s a free country, after all!

Naturally, this set off a counter-flurry of bemused Kap/Nike stans who offered their own take on these futile acts of Nike massacre. But none like this genius thread by Devan Flores (@devanf91), whose original tweet, on the surface, seems like one Trump supporters would get behind…but just the original tweet.

 

The remainder of the tweets in the thread provide some genius alternative uses for the top logo part of a pair of Nike socks. Such as:

 

People on Twitter loved the ole switcharoo.

Lest we forget:

“After hours of careful consideration, and even a visit from Nate Boyer, a retired Green Beret and former NFL player, we came to the conclusion that we should kneel, rather than sit, … during the anthem as a peaceful protest,” wrote NFL player and veteran Eric Reid. “We chose to kneel because it’s a respectful gesture. I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy.”