THE JOKES ON YOU

It is ok to be hated. It is ok to be scorned. Once can even survive unrelenting hostility. But, one cannot survive being laughed out of the room. The Nike ad featuring Colin Kaepernick is truly insulting. Apparently not only must we tolerate the insults and disrespect for our flag, we must now stand up and salute Kaepernick for his heroic stand against injustice. This, of course, is absurd. Kaepernick sacrificed nothing and his entire campaign is based on a patently false narrative.

At first, I thought the response to this would be anger and a boycott of Nike, ESPN and the NFL. That is all true and that is happening. But this is a lot more than that. This commercial is so bad that there are now more versions of this commercial mocking it than there are of the original. Some of these “modified ads” are absolutely hysterical. Donald Trump, Jr. even made one substituting his dad’s face for Kaepernick. One of my current favorites is a picture of Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.  The caption is:

“Believe in something, Even if it means taking a knee.”

I saw a talking head on TV trying to explain that this will help Nike sell shoes in China. He is unconcerned over the people boycotting Nike and burning shoes.  Apparently selling Nike products in America is a waste of time. He considers this a brilliant marketing strategy. He will probably be unemployed by next weekend. Wiser people are selling Nike stock.

This Nike commercial has become a national joke and this is not going away anytime soon. In addition, no one will ever be able to say “sacrifice” again with a straight face. This has literally changed our language, probably permanently. That is sad, because once again we have changed the meaning of a word to the extent it no longer has any meaning.

I sometimes think the most profitable job in the world is to get promoted to CEO of a major corporation so that you are in a position to make a really world class mistake. Then you get fired, along with a huge bonus check for mucking it up. Sometimes, stupidity can be very rewarding.

TDM

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