We learned that Just Doing It means “taking matters into our own hands,” and “shooting first, asking questions later.” The children of the eighties didn’t just learn to bow down to cultural gods nor learn to see ourselves as future heroes as long as we Just Do It. Its intuition finely tuned to the cultural moment, Nike understood that in teaching us to worship the individual Jump Man and see ourselves as potential superheroes, the 1980s was defining exactly what kind of superheroes the youngest generation should emulate-the self-sufficient renegades, the seething rebels, the “outlaws with morals,” as one Nike executive called them. Pundits pontificated on its meaning, talk shows discussed its message, and the New York Times devoted an entire editorial to it, calling the spot “the most subversive sneaker commercial of all time.” When asked who makes the right endorser, a Nike talent scout answered, “I’m looking for a special attitude,” a mix of brooding lonerism and righteous rebellion-not merely because the company wanted to differentiate its brand but because it wanted to appropriate the particular form of individualism that was already in ascendance. The spot went beyond sports and way beyond product advertising (a sneaker wasn’t even mentioned) it was definitive social commentary, and it made a huge splash.
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