I Never Thought Shoes Would Actually Be "To Die For"

In Carol A. Stabile’s article about Nike, I had absolutely no idea any of those “sneaker wars” went on. The “wars” went on between Nike and Reebok in the early 90s in their television advertisements both showing NBA players wearing their sneakers (197). People then began to feel the need to keep up with this consumerist society and purchase these shoes. However, people went to even greater lengths and killed others for their shoes. A quote from J. Lomuscio stated that there were “situations in town where youngsters not only had their bicycles stolen but their sneakers – their Michael Jordan Air Pumps – right off them” (197). Then, Nike realized they needed to change their advertising and the way they portrayed their sneaker line so that this inner city crime wouldn’t take place anymore. Nike then decided to try to appeal to their more “running geek” consumers, rather than their competition between Reebok (199). They changed their advertisements and began using slogans like ‘Just Do It’, hopefully drawing in a different band of consumers. I didn’t know any of this went on and it really surprised me! I thought Nike was always more toward the average runner, but it is shocking to hear that people actually killed others for their shoes. It’s actually very sad to me that some people are that drawn into consumerist societies that they don’t care about others’ lives and care more about shoes.