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A year ago, after producing hundreds of shoe styles and billions of dollars together, Adidas broke with Kanye West as he made antisemitic and other offensive public comments. But Adidas had been tolerating his misconduct behind the scenes for nearly a decade. B35309 2015 AQ4832 AQ2659 AQ4830 AQ4831 AQ4829 AQ4828 AQ4836 AQ2660 BB1839 AQ2661 BB5350 […] More
Credit the show’s star and creator, Jason Sudeikis, a real-life sneakerhead who owns about 250 pairs.There’s a reason that Ted Lasso, the fictional, sunny, mustachioed American hired to manage an English football club in the Apple TV+ series of the same name, is a sneakerhead.“It was rooted in my own enthusiasm for sneakers and sneaker culture,” said Jason Sudeikis, who has sported more than a dozen pairs of blue, orange and even red paisley Air Jordans as the show’s titular coach.In a recent call from London, Mr. Sudeikis said that Ted’s affinity for footwear was also inspired, in part, by his longtime friend Brendan Curran, a fellow sneaker enthusiast and high school basketball coach in Lenexa, Kan., who connected with his students over this shared interest.“It was this bit of unspoken respect and camaraderie among him and his players and his students,” Mr. Sudeikis, 47, said of Mr. Curran and his team.While other shows like the ’90s sitcom “Seinfeld” have dabbled in delighting sneaker stans, “Ted Lasso” takes it to a whole new level. Characters have sported popular sneakers such as 2021 Air Jordan 1 Low “UNC”s, 515 Sport V2 New Balances and Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 “Kill Bill” shoes.There’s an Instagram account, @nikesoflasso, where an artist shares illustrations of some of the Nike shoes featured in the show and in Mr. Sudeikis’s personal collection, and a website, Shoes of Lasso, that tracks the various sneakers worn by the show’s cast.“We’re all so flattered by it,” said Mr. Sudeikis, who owns about 250 pairs. “It’s something that we were intentional about from the get-go, before we thought anyone would notice.”The appeal for many sneaker collectors begins at a young age, said Elizabeth Semmelhack, the senior curator at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. “A common thread seems to be a desire for a very specific pair of sneakers,” she said.Mr. Sudeikis not only masterminds his own character’s footwear in “Ted Lasso,” but also consults about the sneaker choices of other characters.Colin Hutton/Apple TV+The Air Jordan 1 Low “UNC” sneaker is one of Mr. Sudeikis’s favorite shoes.NikeMr. Sudeikis said his love of sneakers began when he received his first pair of Air Jordans in middle school, in 1986. The shoes Ted wears are a combination of pairs from Mr. Sudeikis’s own collection (about 25 percent, he estimated) and that of Nike, which came on board as the official kit supplier for the show’s fictional team in its third season.Mr. Sudeikis said that when he wears his own sneakers, it “drives our costumer, Jacky Levy, a little crazy, just for continuity purposes.”Mr. Sudeikis, who originally played Ted in sketch-length NBC Sports commercials that aired in 2013 and 2014, not only masterminds his own character’s footwear, but also consults about the sneaker choices of other characters.“People would come into my trailer, and they’d say, ‘Oh my gosh’ — it would look like the back room of a Foot Locker,” he said.The characters’ sneaker choices have been intentional since the beginning, Mr. Sudeikis said, but eagle-eyed fans have increasingly begun psychoanalyzing them for plot clues. (In fairness, it’s not just the shoes; in Episode 2 of Season 3, a theory about Rebecca’s earrings being lassos — though in reality they were snakes — gained traction online.)Mr. Sudeikis said the sneaker sleuthing was definitely merited.“Jacky is incredibly intentional about that, certainly with Rebecca’s wardrobe, Keeley’s wardrobe, everybody’s,” he said. “It’s not always the sneakers, either — Ted wearing an orange sweatshirt in the Amsterdam episode was intentional because the national color for the Netherlands is orange.”Mr. Sudeikis said he liked the sense of community that springs up among sneakerheads.When he worked at “Saturday Night Live,” he would often walk to work wearing a pair of Jordans. “You’d meet someone who’d notice your shoes first and give you a nod,” he said. “It’s a little bit like ‘Fight Club’ — game recognizes game.”Eliza Wilson, an illustrator in Melbourne, Australia, who runs the Nikes of Lasso account and has drawn more than 70 shoes, echoed that idea. The feedback she received from other fans, she said, provided a sense of community during lockdown periods of the pandemic.With the series wrapping up on May 31, Ms. Wilson said she would miss the weekly routine of sketching the sneakers featured in every new episode, which take her about four to five hours each. But, she said, she may continue drawing shoes she sees Mr. Sudeikis wearing in social media posts and other photos.Despite owning enough sneakers to wear a different pair every other day for a year, there’s one pair, Mr. Sudeikis said, that remains close to his heart.“They’re pretty beat up at this point, but my Jordan 1s, low, they’re Carolina Blue,” he said, referring to the athletic color of the University of North Carolina. “I wear them a couple times throughout the show. I genuinely love those shoes.” More
“Air” tells the origin story of the iconic brand, but it’s long had a hold on Hollywood, from “Do the Right Thing” to “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.”In “Air,” the new biographical sports drama about Nike’s 1984 effort to land an endorsement deal with then-N.B.A. rookie Michael Jordan, the Air Jordan is the sneaker holy grail. Designed by the eccentric genius Peter Moore, the sleek, stylish basketball shoe seems not so much created as discovered — as if, Moore says in the film, “it’s always been here,” much the way Michelangelo found his sculptures “already complete within the marble block.”The film, directed by Ben Affleck, tells the story of how the Air Jordan came to be. If anything, the movie undersells the Air Jordan’s pop cultural significance: Almost as soon as the sneaker was released, it become a phenomenon, not only raising the ceiling for shoe sales but also redefining the very limits of footwear success. In the four decades since its debut, the Air Jordan has continued to thrive: Jordan Brand, now a subsidiary of Nike, earned more than $5 billion in sales in 2022. Retro Air Jordan releases often sell out in minutes, with aftermarket demand routinely driving resale prices into four figures and beyond.Before its reverent screen treatment in “Air,” the Air Jordan already had an important place in movie history, as the unheralded star — sometimes central, sometimes lurking in the background — of countless motion pictures. To better understand how the shoe’s role in pop culture has evolved over the years, we looked back at some of its most notable big-screen appearances.1989‘Do the Right Thing’In a famous scene in Spike Lee’s Brooklyn-set “Do the Right Thing,” the chippy Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) is looking fresh in a clean pair of Air Jordan 4s — until a run-in with a boorish local gentrifier (John Savage) leaves them lamentably scuffed. “You stepped on my brand-new white Air Jordans I just bought!” Buggin Out howls in outrage.It’s an unforgivable affront, and one any sneakerhead knows all too well: Like a dent in a new car, a scuff is hard to come back from. And as the scene makes amusingly clear, a brand-new pair of Jordans isn’t cheap — even in 1989. “How much did you pay for those, man?” a friend asks, indignant on Buggin’s behalf. Other pals chime in: “A hundred bucks! American dollars! A hundred and eight with tax!”This scene quickly achieved a kind of immortality among sneaker collectors, and in 2017, Jordan Brand paid tribute to the film with a special-edition release. The exclusive Jordan 4s were designed to look exactly like the ones Buggin Out wore — complete with replica scuff.1996‘Space Jam’For Jordan’s much-anticipated screen debut, it was only reasonable that His Airness should don an exclusive set of kicks. “Space Jam” — in which Jordan, playing himself, helps Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes defeat the evil alien Nerdlucks on the court — saw the unveiling of the Air Jordan 11 in an exclusive white, black and purple colorway, featured prominently throughout the film’s climactic game.Although the movie came out in 1996, at what was arguably the height of Jordan’s N.B.A. career, the shoe was not made available until 2000, when it instantly became a collector’s item. (It was rereleased in 2009 and again in 2016.) To this day, the Space Jam Jordan remains one of the most beloved editions of the popular silhouette — and the film remains one of the most enduring love letters to the beauty of the shoe.1998‘He Got Game’Spike Lee had deep ties with Nike going back to 1986 when he played Mars Blackmon in his debut feature, “She’s Gotta Have It,” later reprising the role in a series of TV commercials for the Air Jordan. When he set out to make “He Got Game,” he leveraged that connection, managing to secure a pair of then-unreleased Jordan 13s months before they were available to the public or even worn by Jordan himself on the court.Denzel Washington stars as Jake Shuttlesworth, a convict offered a chance for a commuted life sentence if he can persuade his estranged son, Jesus (Ray Allen), one of the country’s top high school basketball prospects, to enroll at the governor’s alma mater. Shortly after being let out on work release, Jake heads to a sneaker store, where the clerk (Avery Glymph) immediately shows off the latest Jordan model. “I was all about Jordans, and to have those shoes in my hands, knowing I was like the first person to hold them, was kind of cool,” Glymph told Andscape magazine in 2019.2013‘White House Down’The Air Jordan’s appeal is so democratic that in the action blockbuster “White House Down,” even the leader of the free world wears them. Jamie Foxx, as President James Sawyer, dons a pair of Air Jordan 4s in the fan-favorite Fire Red colorway, using them to sneak past armed terrorists during an attempted kidnapping and violent White House takeover. (“Get your hands off my Jordans!” Sawyer bellows, as one tenacious bad guy wrestles with him on the floor.) It’s a small appearance, but one that makes clear the Jordan’s ascendancy from basketball shoe to streetwear staple to common accessory with formal tailoring.2016‘Kicks’When Brandon (Jahking Guillory), a 15-year-old sneakerhead of limited means, lucks into a coveted pair of Air Jordan 1s for pennies on the dollar, they become his most prized possession, lifting his spirits and imbuing him with newfound confidence. He’s so in love with the shoes that he’s reluctant to do anything in them, sitting out a pickup game for fear they’ll get mussed. “They’re called Jordans,” his friend teases him. “He played basketball!”“Kicks,” an indie drama from the director Justin Tipping, follows Brandon as he tries to track down his Air Jordans after they’re stolen by gangsters, an adventure that puts him in danger. The film shows how desperately a kid like Brandon can pine after Jordans, and how Jordans can come to mean much more than footwear. “They’re not just shoes,” Brandon asserts at one point, and the film compellingly demonstrates that truth.2018‘Uncle Drew’The goofy sports satire “Uncle Drew” stars Dallas Mavericks point guard Kyrie Irving as the eponymous elderly basketball legend, a character he played in several popular Pepsi Max commercials in the early 2010s. But the movie is really about Dax (Lil Rel Howery), an amateur basketball coach with lofty aspirations who is struggling to make his sports dreams come true.Dax works a day job at Foot Locker, where he’s prevailed upon by his team’s vain and entitled star player, Casper (Aaron Gordon), to use his insider connections to buy every player a matching set of Jordan 11s. It’s a staggering expense he can barely afford, and it fails to prevent Casper from ditching his team for a rival’s soon afterward. Interestingly, the sneaker itself is the rereleased Space Jam Jordan 11 from 2016, drawing a connection between Irving’s Uncle Drew and the classic Michael Jordan film.2018‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’The single most iconic screen Jordan since “Space Jam” arrived in the animated superhero flick “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” The new Spider-Man Miles Morales (the voice of Shameik Moore) wears a pair of Air Jordan 1s in the original Chicago colorway, playfully loose, laces untied. (That is remarked upon so often that it becomes a running joke.) The sneakers are variously lingered over, zoomed in on and even featured prominently on the movie’s poster. The focus brought new attention to the classic sneaker, and introduced a generation of viewers to a shoe whose original heyday came before many of them were born. To commemorate the film, Jordan Brand released a special edition Jordan 1 with a distinctive webbed pattern, known as the Spider-Man Origin Story. More
The Footwear News Achievement Awards, sometimes called the Oscars of shoes, shines a spotlight on the industry’s top designers. But when the singer Dua Lipa won for a Puma collection last November, her frequent collaborator Billy Walsh bolted at the sight of flashing cameras.“Billy Walsh’s five-seconds limit on the red carpet,” Ms. Lipa said, as photographers shouted her name at Cipriani Wall Street.“More like two seconds,” Mr. Walsh, 40, added safely from the sidelines.Avoiding attention is a peculiar trait for a man who collaborates with some of the biggest names in pop, including Ms. Lipa, Post Malone and the Weeknd, straddling the upper echelons of fashion and music.He has collaborated with Rihanna on a Fenty collection with Puma, and consulted Kanye West on video directors. As a fashion stylist, he dressed the Weeknd in Givenchy for the Met gala and James Blake in Yohji Yamamoto for awards shows.But his biggest achievements are in songwriting. His co-writing credits include “Sunflower” by Post Malone and Swae Lee, and six tracks on Mr. West’s “Donda” album — and those are just counting his Grammy nominations.“Billy is part of a small group of people in this industry that I consider to be like family,” Mr. Malone said by email. Their shared writing catalog also includes the hits “I Fall Apart,” “Better Now,” “Wow” and “Circles.” “Not only is he one of the best songwriters, but he is a brilliant creative and fashion designer.”Dua Lipa and Mr. Walsh won collection of the year award at the Footwear News Achievement Awards last November.Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated PressMr. Walsh has written numerous songs for Post Malone, seen here at a Spotify concert in 2022.Antony Jones/Getty ImagesOn a recent Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Walsh went shopping at Dover Street Market, the retail temple in Manhattan where he often goes for inspiration. “I would come here to do massive pulls for the Weeknd,” he said. “I used to start on the top floor and work my way down.”He still does. As he flipped through racks of Raf Simons and Junya Watanabe on the seventh floor, Mr. Walsh recounted this unorthodox rise in the recording and street wear industries. “Fashion and music are definitely interrelated, but I guess I don’t know too many people who have succeeded in both,” he said. “I stay in the back and don’t need credit.”Dressed in an all-black “uniform” (T-shirt, Prada nylon shorts, Alyx socks and Nike Air Tuned Max sneakers), with his signature shaved head and chrome-metal grills, he has the tough-guy appearance of a post-apocalyptic British rude boy.Mr. Walsh credits his dexterity to his rough-and-tumble upbringing in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. His father, William Walsh, a folk musician who performed at local Irish pubs, encouraged him to write poetry and dance. He was also an obsessive sneaker head. “I drove my mom crazy looking all over the city for the Adidas Equipment Basketball shoes with the interchangeable, different-colored socks,” he said.Other addictions followed. He started drinking at 11, often getting into after-school brawls until he sobered up a decade later.Mr. Walsh at his home in Los Angeles.Jack Bool for The New York TimesAt 18, he headed to Los Angeles to study dance at Loyola Marymount University, and signed with an agent. But dance gigs were few and far between, so he spent most of his 20s as a nightclub promoter, working alongside his brother at Hollywood hot spots like Emerson Theater and Hyde, where he would party with a young Post Malone and future designers like Matthew M. Williams of Givenchy.In 2011, the choreographer Fatima Robinson, who he met at Eden, a Hollywood nightclub, encouraged him to stop dancing and focus on poetry and design instead. “This woman literally saved my life,” he said.He quit auditioning and busied himself with writing poetry and daydreaming about street wear. He looked inside his sneaker closet and began experimenting with Frankenstein combinations. One of the first designs cobbled together was a white Nike Air Force One with a black rubber creeper sole. “I always wondered what a creeper would look like with certain old sneakers from my childhood,” he said.He wore his custom sneakers to the clubs, which would get noticed by emerging V.I.P.s like Virgil Abloh and Travis Scott. In 2014, with seed money from fellow party promoters, he and a friend started a street wear label called Mr. Completely, which reimagined classic sneakers including Adidas Sambas and Stan Smiths.Mr. Walsh added a creeper sole to an Adidas Stand Smith for his streetwear brand, Mr. Completely.via Billy WalshTo promote the brand, he held a party at Fourtwofour on Fairfax and invited everyone he knew. Among them was the stylist Jahleel Weaver, who ordered several pairs for his client Rihanna. That turned out to be a propitious sale. A few months later, Rihanna invited Mr. Walsh to design her debut collection with Puma (which went on to win the Footwear News “Shoe of the Year” two years later).Sneakers opened other doors. One of them led to Illangelo, a veteran Canadian producer, who became a confidant and his unexpected entree into music writing. Once again, it started at a nightclub. The two were clubbing on the Sunset Strip in 2014 when Illangelo mentioned that he needed a new songwriter. Seizing the moment, Mr. Walsh shared a short poem from his iPhone Notes app.Illangelo was so impressed that he brought Mr. Walsh into studio sessions with Alicia Keys and he ended up getting his first mainstream writing credit on the song, “In Common.” Illangelo also introduced Mr. Walsh to the Weeknd, who at first was only interested in working with him as a stylist. (The two shared an appreciation for military bomber jackets.) But as Mr. Walsh’s reputation as a songwriter began to rise, the Weeknd began bringing him into the studio.Mr. Walsh dressed the Weeknd for the Met Gala in 2016.George Pimentel/WireImageMr. Walsh dressed James Blake in Yohji Yamamoto for the Grammy Awards in 2020.Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesThose sessions resulted in three tracks from the 2016 album “Starboy,” including “True Colors” and “Die for You,” which peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 this month, seven years after it was first released, thanks to going viral on TikTok.Mr. Walsh has since gone on to write more than 100 songs for artists as varied as the Kid Laroi (“Without You”), pop powerhouses like Mr. Malone and Ms. Lipa, and rock royalty like Ozzy Osbourne (“Ordinary Man”). His publishing catalog has racked up a combined 20 billion streams. Last November, “Sunflower” went 17 times platinum, becoming the highest-certified single of all time.His soaring music career hasn’t stopped him from other creative pursuits. In 2016, he started Donavan’s Yard, a nightlife collective in Los Angeles with the D.J.s Drew Byrd and Sean G that hosts parties in Tokyo and a streaming concert series on Amazon Music Live. Branded merch is sold at Dover Street Market,In October, he started a conceptual street wear label called Iswas with Keith Richardson, his creative partner at Mr. Completely. The label currently sells one item: a pair of painter’s pants made from Japanese selvage denim that costs $450.Despite his many accolades, Mr. Walsh prefers being behind the scenes. “I am never the main focus, just as it should be,” he said. Jack Bool for The New York TimesWearing many hats, Mr. Walsh said, affords him creative freedom. “If Abel knows I am winning an award with Dua and doing my own clothing line, he respects that I’m doing OK for myself,” he said, referring to the Weeknd by his given name. “No one feels like you’re too dependent.”Back at Dover Street, Mr. Walsh went from floor to floor, examining the clothing racks like an archaeologist at a fresh dig. On the shoe floor, he picked up a pair of cloven-toed “tabi” boots by Martin Margiela. “I appreciate what this guy does,” he said of the designer, who, like himself, shuns the limelight in favor of letting his work speak for itself.After about two hours, he reached the Rose Bakery on the ground floor, took a seat and ordered an Earl Grey tea. As ambient music played overhead, he reflected on his unusual journey. “My success comes from artists recognizing that I see the creative process as sacred, somewhat secret,” he said. “I am never the main focus, just as it should be.” More
This musical remake follows an orphaned boy in Queens as he falls head over sneaker heels for the daughter of a Manhattan footwear magnate.A Queens hypebeast falls for a Manhattan rich girl in “Sneakerella,” the latest rehashed fairy tale to be foisted upon audiences. It seemed inevitable that Disney would swap glass slippers for pumped-up kicks eventually; Cinderella is too shoe-centric a story and Hollywood too besotted with remakes — lest viewers forget, Camila Cabello played the maiden mere months ago — for nobody to dream up a sneakerhead crossover.If this spin on the tale is not quite diverting enough to justify its existence, the movie, directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum, is at least not a soulless exercise. Peppered with an array of original songs, “Sneakerella” is a hip-hop opera whose music is never mere emotional embroidery. Scenes are often sung-through, with rap and lyrics serving as dialogue. The actors could have used some more lip-syncing practice, but the effect is fun. Lin-Manuel Miranda might be tickled to see how the trickle-down of his stylings can elevate even the most dubious of re-trodden I.P.The story is also gender-swapped. Our orphaned hero is El (Chosen Jacobs), a sneaker fanatic and stock boy in an Astoria shoe store who’s overworked by his stepfather and razzed by his stepbrothers. In line for new kicks, he meets Kira (Lexi Underwood), the daughter of a sneaker tycoon and the heiress to its empire. First comes love, then comes drama: El wants to design footwear for Kira’s family business, and fibs about a wealth of experience to score the gig. It’s a complication as contrived as they come, but then again, so is a prince shoving a kingdom’s worth of feet into a stiletto.SneakerellaNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. Watch on Disney+. More
Online platforms that stream dance, singing and comedy shows are pixelating performers’ T-shirts and sneakers amid a nationalistic fervor.HONG KONG — Viewers of some of China’s most popular online variety shows were recently greeted by a curious sight: a blur of pixels obscuring the brands on sneakers and T-shirts worn by contestants.As far as viewers could tell, the censored apparel showed no hints of obscenity or indecency. Instead, the problem lay with the foreign brands that made them.Since late March, streaming platforms in China have diligently censored the logos and symbols of brands like Adidas that adorn contestants performing dance, singing and standup-comedy routines. The phenomenon followed a feud between the government and big-name international companies that said they would avoid using cotton produced in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, where the authorities are accused of mounting a wide-reaching campaign of repression against ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs.While the anger in China against Western brands has been palpable and enduring on social media, the sight of performers turned into rapidly moving blobs of censored shoes and clothing has provided rare, albeit unintentional, comic relief for Chinese viewers amid a heated global dispute. It has also exposed the unexpected political tripwires confronting apolitical entertainment platforms as the government continues to weaponize the Chinese consumer in its political disputes with the West.Most of the brands were not discernible, but some could be identified. Chinese brands did not appear to be blurred. It’s not clear if Chinese government officials explicitly ordered the shows to obscure the brands. But experts said that the video streaming sites apparently felt pressured or obliged to publicly distance themselves from Western brands amid the feud.Ying Zhu, a media professor at the City University of New York and Hong Kong Baptist University, suggested that the censorship was a response to both state and grass-roots patriotism, especially as the opinions of nationalistic viewers become more prominent and loud.Moving cotton from China’s Xinjiang region at a railway freight station in Jiujiang in central Jiangxi Province last month.Chinatopix, via Associated Press“The pressure is both top down and bottom up,” said Professor Zhu. “There is no need for the state to issue a directive for the companies to rally behind. Nationalistic sentiment runs high and mighty, and it drowns all other voices.”The censorship campaign can be traced to a dispute that erupted last month, when the Swedish clothing giant H&M was suddenly scrubbed from Chinese online shopping sites. The move came after the Communist Youth League and state news media resurfaced a statement H&M made months ago expressing concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang.Other Western clothing brands had also said they would avoid using Xinjiang cotton, and one after another, many Chinese celebrities severed ties with them. Since then, the loyalty test seems to have spread to streaming shows.Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor of journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who studies media and politics, said he believed that the platforms most likely censored the brands to pre-empt a backlash from viewers.“If anyone is not happy with those brands appearing in the shows, they could start a social media campaign attacking the producers, which could attract attention from the government and eventually lead to punishment,” he said by email on Thursday.As the blurring spread across apparel brands, it led to some hiccups on shows. The video platform iQiyi announced that it would delay the release of an episode of “Youth With You 3,” a reality show for aspiring pop idols. It did not disclose the reason, but internet users surmised that it had to do with Adidas, which had supplied T-shirts and sneakers for the contestants to wear as a sort of team uniform.Some internet users made mocking predictions about how the upcoming episode would look, photoshopping images to flip the contestants vertically so that their Adidas T-shirts read, “Sabiba” instead.In an episode of “Youth With You 3” released on March 18, contestants’ Adidas T-shirts were on display.iQiyiThen, in a March 28 episode of the same show, the Adidas logo was blurred out on contestants’ T-shirts. But the Adidas stripes were visible elsewhere.iQiyiWhen the episode streamed two days later, pixelated rectangles obscured the T-shirts and sports jackets of dozens of dancers and the distinguishing triple stripes on their Adidas sneakers. Internet users observed mirthfully that none of the shirts had been spared, save for the one contestant who had worn his shirt backward. Many extended condolences to video editors for their lost sleep and labor blurring the T-shirts.Other shows executed similar blurring feats in postproduction. Contestants on another reality show for entertainers, “Sisters Who Make Waves,” practiced cartwheels in sneakers blitzed into indiscernible blurs. So many shoes were erased in the stand-up comedy series, “Roast” that when a group gathered on a podium, the space between the floor and their long hems appeared to melt into a fog.A representative for Tencent Video, which hosts “Roast,” declined to comment on why some brands were censored. The streaming platforms iQiyi and Mango TV, which respectively host “Youth With You 3” and “Sisters Who Make Waves,” did not respond to requests for comment. Adidas did not respond to emailed questions.The onscreen blur or crop is hardly novel in China. The earlobes of male pop stars have been airbrushed to hide earrings deemed too effeminate. A period drama featuring décolletage distinctive to the Tang Dynasty was pulled off the air in 2015, only to be replaced with a version that cropped out much of the costumes and awkwardly zoomed in on the talking heads of the performers. Soccer players have been ordered to cover arm tattoos with long sleeves.The onscreen censorship illustrates the difficult line that the online video platforms, which are regulated by the National Radio and Television Administration, need to tread.“The blurring is likely the platforms’ self-censorship in order to be safe than sorry,” said Haifeng Huang, an associate professor of political science at the University of California at Merced and a scholar of authoritarianism and public opinion in China.“But it nevertheless implies the power of the state and the nationalistic segment of the society, which is also likely the message that the audience gets: These big platforms have to censor themselves even without being explicitly told so.”The blurring episodes also show how the platforms seem to be willing to sacrifice the quality of the viewing experience to avoid political fallout, even when they become the butt of audience jokes.“In a social environment where censorship is commonplace, people are desensitized and even treat it as another form of entertainment,” Professor Huang said.Albee Zhang More
The rapper’s new single, video and sneaker were merely the prelude to a brilliantly orchestrated main event: a virtuosic performance on Twitter.One after another, they came with venom for Lil Nas X. The basketball star Nick Young. The governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem. The rapper Joyner Lucas. Candace Owens and various right-wing Twitter personalities. Greg Locke, a Tennessee pastor. Fox News. Nike.They were clueless. Blissful, almost — lambs blind to the slaughter they were hurtling toward.Lil Nas X was waiting for them all, barbs at his fingertips. For the last four days — since the release of his new single, “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” its masterfully absurdist erotica video and then limited-edition sneakers called Satan Shoes — the 21-year-old rapper and digital prodigy has been using his Twitter account as a fly swatter, flattening one irritant after the next in a loud and uproarious display of internet-speed celebrity, executing a series of flawless pirouette dunks on the heads of his willing but bumbling antagonists.After Noem tweeted about his Satan Shoes, he groaned, “ur a whole governor and u on here tweeting about some damn shoes. do ur job!” Lucas suggested that the “Montero” video might not be appropriate for children, and Lil Nas X eye-rolled back, “i literally sing about lean & adultery in old town road. u decided to let your child listen. blame yourself.”In between target practice, Lil Nas X was reflective, too. “i spent my entire teenage years hating myself,” because of what Christianity taught about homosexuality, he wrote. “so i hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves.”What “Montero” has caused — or rather, what Lil Nas X has engineered — is a good old-fashioned moral panic (or at least the performance of one), the sort of thing that had largely been left behind in the 1980s, but is tragically well-suited to the country’s current cultural discourse polarization. The song, the video, the shoes — they are bait.And “Montero” anticipates the kerfuffles it would cause. The true art here isn’t the music (that said, it’s one of Lil Nas X’s better songs) or the video (more on that below): it’s the effortlessness, the ease, the joy of his reactions to the reactions. It’s the sense that he is playing chess to everyone else’s lame checkers moves — he is simply faster, funnier and on firmer, more principled ground than his adversaries, who are at best, comically flimsy.No famous person is as adept as Lil Nas X at casually but thoroughly smacking down the ream of Twitter churls inevitably awakened by something like this — maybe Cardi B, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He is a grade-A internet manipulator and, provided all the tools and resources typically reserved for long-established pop superstars, he is perfectly suited to dominate the moment. “Montero” may or may not top the Billboard Hot 100 next week, but it will be unrivaled in conversations started.“Montero” is a frisky song about lust; Lil Nas X has said it was inspired by a man he met and fell for. The video, which pivots from pastel pastoral to CGI gothic, is a wild, kaleidoscope romp of sexual self-acceptance, in which Lil Nas X pole dances his way down to hell, where he gives Satan a lap dance before killing him, stealing his horns and claiming them for himself.It is knowing and camp, and knowing about its campiness, meshing the testing-the-format provocations of the late-1980s video era with the big-budget pop-machine clips of the early 2000s. That it has awakened culture warriors uncomfortable with displays of gay male desire, or with playful representations of sin, means the video has done what it was meant to do.The same is true of the Satan Shoes he released in partnership with the company MSCHF — a Nike Air Max 97 customized with some lightly provocative references to Satan, priced at $1,018 a pair in a nod to Luke 10:18, a Bible passage about the fall of Satan from heaven. The shoes include, allegedly, a drop of human blood in the liquid that fills the soles.Lil Nas partnered with MSCHF to release Satan Shoes — a Nike Air Max 97 customized with some lightly provocative references to Satan.MSCHFSatanic iconography is perhaps the lowest hanging fruit of transgression, especially in a consumer product. But here, again, this was chum in the water — the discourse started by the shoes has been far more important than the shoes themselves. Nike disavowed them, and sued MSCHF for trademark infringement (but notably not Lil Nas X, a celebrity it might end up one day actually wanting to collaborate with). A sneaker YouTuber who was provided a pair of the shoes filmed himself throwing them down the trash chute in his apartment building. Lil Nas X, meanwhile, was posting uproarious memes about pleading for Nike’s forgiveness.Twitter is a performance space like any other, with an almost limitless audience: stans, enthusiasts, haters, trolls, skeptics, newbies. Lil Nas X has something for all of them. In his pre-“Old Town Road” life, he was an active Nicki Minaj stan, which meant he was a maestro of steering online conversation.And though he is now one of the most successful new pop stars of the past few years, that fundamental skill set remains. In recent days, he’s taunted the fast food chain Chick-fil-A (which is owned by religious conservatives); poked fun at the campaign Justin Bieber attempted to boost streams of his single “Yummy”; posted endless memes about his flirtations with the dark side, mock apologies for his transgressions and even headfake statements of anxiety that end as reminders to stream “Montero.”All of it is memorable — not simply because of the expert skill on display, but because it’s clear that Lil Nas X is not simply the performer of “Montero,” nor simply the star of its video, nor simply the inspiration for a sneaker. He’s the conductor of a symphony of thousands, maybe even millions. It’s Lil Nas X’s conversation, we’re all just talking in it. More
