Culture Jamming

Here is an example of culture jamming by Jonah Peretti. Jonah wanted to create a shoe from the Nike iD site. Nike iD is a site that lets you personalize a Nike shoe with the colours of your choice and "iD" the shoe with a small personal message. Usually people will choose their nickname, team name, or something of meaning. Jonah decided to ID his shoe with the word "sweatshop."

Although Jonah did not break any of the iD'ing rules...

1) Your Personal iD contains another party's trademark or other intellectual property.
2) Your Personal iD contains the name of an athlete or team we do not have the legal right to use.
3) Your Personal iD was left blank. Did you not want any personalization?
4) Your Personal iD contains profanity or inappropriate slang, and besides, your mother would slap us.

...his order was denied by Nike because he used "inappropriate slang."


I don't think anyone in the world except Nike would consider the word sweatshop inappropriate slang. However, Nike has the right to refuse any iD that is tagged on their shoe, especially one that would tarnish their own product.

Nike gives their consumers the ability to personalize their shoe to give them a shoe that provides a sense of uniqueness. They want to give us a shoe that we can say defines us. They want their consumers to be able to say this shoe IS ME, and DEFINES ME AS A PERSON. Jonah attacks Nike's sweatshop partnership through its own creative intentions by incorporating his own sense of creative and satirical ideas.

I, myself am a basketball player and have previously ordered my own pair of personalized Nike iD basketball shoes and am even at this moment wearing a pair of Nike sandals. Will I continue to buy Nike shoes? Yes. Do I support Nike in its labour practices? No. So what do I do? I think about this every time I buy a new pair of shoes. What is more important the shoes that I think define me or the people who make my shoes that are over worked and underpaid?

Jonah and every other Nike critic makes me wonder why the fuck do I buy Nike? I feel like I buy the shoes I do because I like the look and feel in them. They look and perform the best on the court. But how the hell does this give me the right to support Nike and its sweatshop labour. It doesn't. As I type this I am honestly considering what I should do. This is what culture jamming is for. It wants me to question what I am consuming.