Yeah, this one's a troll, both literally and figuratively, and its story goes back 30 years.
But why is it playing hoops and what's with the old school 8-bit video game aesthetic?
To start, the arms, the ball, the legs, the AND1 sneakers and the NBA headband all belonged to Rafer Alston, AKA "Skip to My Lou," swiped off the 2006 video game Streetball. Similarly, the body, face and signature wild red hair came from screengrabs of the 1992 video game Trolls. The only part that I created myself is the one critical element: the logo on the jersey, a spiraling series of swoosh-ie elements that I'll explain in a "foot" note.
Starting in 6th grade (1984), with the Sky Force High, and continuing for 12 years, when it came to sneakers, I was pretty loyal to one major apparel company. Not casually loyal. I loved their sneakers so much that I consistently begged my parents for every new release, including the pair that came with a little plastic pump (that was ridiculously overpriced for the time and failed miserably in sales).
Then, in 1996, while playing a pickup game in college, one of the soles on my favorite pair I ever wore, the Webber 2s, delaminated and peeled back. My run that day was cut short, but it was totally fine. Things happen, right? I mean, out of millions of shoes, some are going to fail. I just wanted a new pair as quickly as I could get them.
The next day, I took them back to the sporting goods store where I bought them. They immediately offered to replace them. But, since they didn't have the same colorway I had, they told me to send them back to the company directly. I did. But not with a complaint. I included what was pretty much a love letter about what the brand meant to me for over a decade.
The feelings clearly weren't mutual. Because what I got back from them was a one-page form letter with an X on the line that read: shoes used for activities other than designed for. I was disappointed and kinda shocked that they didn't even thank me for my dedication to their brand. But I gave them a second chance, anyway. I sent a second letter explaining that I used their basketball sneakers to play basketball. They just sent back the exact same form letter. OK, let's play ball.
My next letter wasn't written to them. Instead, I wrote to their main competitor, Adidas, with a marketing idea: two scenes to edit into an episode of Seinfeld (it was the final season). My idea had George swapping out his signature [the brand that shall not be spoken] sneakers for the Adidas SL72s and Kramer continually complimenting them, pronouncing them "ADEE-das" (I'll spare you the punchline).
Sidenote: the last scene had Kobe Bryant making a cameo trolling the brand a final time.
The response I got couldn't have been better, even in a dream. Although they didn't have the clout to execute my plan, Peter Moore, the Worldwide Creative director, wrote me back, thanking me for my "amusing letter... that showed such creativity." For the record, he's the guy who created the entire Air Jordan concept: the name, the jumpman logo and the Jordan Ones that I wore on the first day of seventh grade.
Even though I wasn't successful with my takedown of the giant, shortly after that, AND1 was the underdog that almost pulled it off. For a minute, when it came to street-sneaks sales, they were nipping at the heels of the pseudo-goddess. Vince Carter even won the slam dunk contest in a pair. But, the beast had the money to woo him over to the dark side.
Impressively, the guy who embodies this troll managed to skip his way off the street courts and into the big league to challenge other Goliaths.
Now, the logo on the jersey: it's a clock-like asterisk. Because there's more to the story, and I think this Goliath's time is almost up.
You followed an asterisk to get here.
Ah, the risk.
That's what this one's about.
Daring to dig in. Daring to be different. Daring to trust ourselves.
You know that feeling when something sounds right but feels wrong?
That's our seventh sense.
The moderator between our heart and our head, weighing both, hunting for the truth.
But first, there's a lil joke on the surface.
Before the aforementioned sports apparel company had chosen its name, the founder wanted to call it Dimension 6.
So DIMENSION 7 is a little one-upmanship. A bit of a gut punch.
But here's why it's really about the gut.
Marketing pulls at our heart with emotion and teases our head with reasons to believe.
Neither one alone can catch the lie.
Our heart gets moved, our head gets deceived, and the empty vessel sails right through.
Advertising has always been convincing. What changed is the volume: it's everywhere all the time.
And it stopped looking like advertising.
Now it looks like people, like our friends.
The noise never stops.
Now check out the circle in the crux of the 7.
Two swoosh-ie shapes, like an ouroboros eating its own tail.
The swoosh, I think you get it. And the ie, that's because there's additional explanation.
The swoosh is a brand that's devouring itself.
They'll sign a female athlete to a campaign about empowering women, then cancel her contracts when she gets pregnant.
The mouth, meeting the tail.
Look closely at DIMENSION.
Hidden inside it: MIND NOISE.
That's the noise they're telling us, their campaigns told by the "friends" who are actually ads.
But it's also the noise in our own head, the chatter we didn't choose.
Stay on the surface and tread in the nonsense.
Or, dig into our mind, turn things upside down, look at them from a side we hadn't considered.
There are many dimensions in there.
The seventh sense initiates the plunge.
Our gut is the last defense when everything looks and sounds real.
Which brings back the risk. Trusting our gut means acting without proof. Believing in our seventh sense.
Do we trust it at the risk of being wrong, at the risk of looking crazy, at the risk of walking a path nobody else is on? I think we have to. It might feel like the dangerous choice, but doing our own thing isn't the biggest risk.
Blindly listening is.
One costs us a little comfort. The other costs us our next better self.
Now back to that letter from Peter Moore.
He wrote that I'd be receiving a gift. It never came, or maybe it got swiped out of the vestibule of my walk-up.
I've always wanted to write him back and tell him I never got it, and that it didn't matter anyway.
Because he'd already sent the gift.
My mind was always spinning with big ideas that everyone around me thought were crazy.
He read one and called it creative, and told me to find an outlet. Well, I did: lAUg AUf.
P.S. None of this comes from anger (which comes from fear). We say, "Do well by doing good."
This is a note that says, "Just do better."