steve kwan user experience designer

Blackspot Sneakers

(September 7th, 2004)

Adbusters, a well-known Vancouver left-wing magazine, is taking shot at Nike with a new line of shoes called Blackspot Sneakers.

Just a warning: this is going to degenerate into a rant. Feel free to go browse somewhere else if you don't want to hear it. It's not like I'm holding a gun to your head. Unless I am. In which case, you'd better keep reading, chocko.

A bit of background for the newbies: Adbusters is a Vancouver magazine that (obviously) "busts ads" through satire. I really don't know how wide-spread Adbusters has become, but they are well known here. They've just released a new line of sneakers which are intended to be "ethical" alternatives to Nike. From what I gather, they intend to pay decent wages to their workers and donate profits to charities.

Naomi Klein, author of No Logo (which is really just a hippie's equivalent of the Anarchist's Cookbook), is opposed to the idea. She argues that this is just countering a form of commercialism with another form of commercialism. And this might be a valid idea, if not for the fact that it's coming from someone as long-winded and headstrong as Naomi Klein.

What has Naomi Klein ever accomplished? A major impression I got from No Logo and her Fences & Windows essay is that Naomi Klein really wants to convince people that she's making a difference. She constantly drops her own name by reminiscing about the protests she's attended. That's great, Naomi...but what have you really accomplished? You wrote a book telling other people why they should be enraged and how they should protest. And now, Adbusters is actually doing something - they are actively promoting a product intended to hurt with Nike - and you are opposed to it because it doesn't fit the protest methodologies you outlined in your book.

Well, everybody should go out and buy a pair of Blackspots. It looks like they might actually get some distribution from retailers in Vancouver. At least they'd make a good conversation piece.