Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune told the story the other day of
the fellow from Oakland who tried to take advantage of Nike’s
offer to personalize his expensive sneakers with a "Nike iD."
The giant shoe company, which is currently sucking in money from
yet another "Air Jordan" shoe it has designed for gullible teenagers,
would allow customers to have words custom-stitched under its trademark
swoosh.
Jonah Peretti, who is a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, asked that his Nike iD be "Sweatshop."
Alas, Peretti heard back from Nike: "Your Nike iD order was canceled
for one or more of the following reasons: 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."
The MIT student wrote back that his iD didn’t violate any
of the four criteria.
"I chose the iD because I wanted to remember the toil and labor
of the children that made my shoes. Could you please ship them to
me immediately?" he replied.
Undaunted, Nike replied to Peretti: "Your Nike iD order was canceled
because the iD you have chosen contains ... inappropriate slang."
According to Zorn, that sent Peretti to the dictionary.
"After consulting Webster’s Dictionary, I discovered that
‘sweatshop’ is in fact part of standard English and not
slang," he told Nike. "Your Web site advertises that the Nike iD
program is ‘about freedom to choose and freedom to express
who you are.’ I share Nike’s love of freedom and personal
expression.
"The site also says that ‘If you want it done right, build
it yourself,’ " he continued. "I was thrilled to be able to
build my own shoes and my personal iD was offered as a small token
of appreciation for the sweatshop workers poised to help me realize
my vision. I hope that you will value my freedom of expression and
reconsider your decision to reject my order."
But, Nike wouldn’t budge. When Zorn contacted a company spokeswoman,
she finally fessed up the real reason Nike rejected Peretti’s
request: "We simply will not put something on our own product that
puts us in a defamatory light."
Peretti finally decided to give up on getting "sweatshop" stitched
onto his sneakers. Instead he wrote:
"I have decided to order the shoes with a different iD, but I would
like to make one small request. Could you please send me a color
snapshot of the 10-year-old Vietnamese girl who makes my shoes?"
He never got a response.
Copyright 2001 The Capital Times
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