Burnsy and Danger Guerrero have been holding down the fort while I’ve been wandering around Austin looking for Mark Henrycovering the sights and sounds for UPROXX and Gamma Squad, but I finally stumbled onto something sports related: the impromptu Nike Fuel Lot in the middle of downtown, wherein you can play sports, watch people take pictures of people playing sports and get a free t-shirt.
The lot has been a meeting point for Livestrong running groups all week, but I managed to get down there on Wednesday to earn my girlfriend’s shirt with 100 Fuel points of activity. See, Nike’s new Fuel Band doesn’t just measure running, like the old Nike Plus … it measures EVERYTHING, from basketball, push-ups and jumping jacks to skateboarding and dancing around like an idiot. Anything athletic, except for swimming, and as I’ve learned the hard way, doing your dishes.
I earned something like 4,000 Fuel points trying to get from one concert to the other (and not wanting to pay the bike rickshaws twenty bucks to take me 10 blocks), but my favorite 100 earned were here. Check out a few of the pictures, and stay for the technicolor freakout at the end.
Before I watched this commercial, my cultural understanding of Brazil had been drawn mostly from Werner Herzog movies and guesstimated quotes from Pitbull’s “International Love”.
In Brazil they freaky with big ol’ booties. And they thongs? Blue, yellow and green!
Now, thanks to Nike Futebol’s “Brasil x Brasil”, I have a more educated perspective on its people: everyone plays soccer, they all look the same and Anderson Silva is there. And they thongs are a variety of colors.
From Cage Potato, who have to be experts on Brazil a la Wayne Campbell and Sweden because Anderson Silva is always doing stuff:
The message of the ad, which also features members of the Brasilian national soccer team, former Brasil player Ronaldo and singer Thiaguinho, is “Triumph Over Your Shadow.” In one-minute spot, Brasil players Neymar, Ganso, Pato, Thiago Silva, and Mascherano play against themselves in their away jerseys.
See, that’s a much better analysis than the “this is just like the last stage in Super Dodge Ball” paragraph I had written. Ah well, here’s to hoping Silva didn’t go out for a cheeseburger after the game.
The best part of this is the “this isn’t real, someone is moving the baby’s chin” “of course it’s fake but it’s still a funny movie!” exchange in the comments. Second best part is that a viral video has been born of a guy hitting his baby in the throat.
Nike Basketball’s Black History Month Collection - If someone asks you, “why isn’t there a white history month?”, defriend and/or strike that person with your fist. [Smoking Section]
Six GIFs Of Jeremy Lin, The Most Surprisingly Exciting Player In The NBA Right Now - Why isn’t there an Asian history month?? (But no, seriously, this guy might be my new favorite player.) [Buzzfeed]
Girl At Giants Super Bowl Parade Can’t Wait to See Mark Sanchez - Is it Kim Kardashian? Because if it is, nobody correct her. [Brobible]
Here’s A Video Montage Of People Unplugging The TV At Crucial Points During The Super Bowl - … followed by “sh*t kids crying kids being taped by their parents because the team they like lost and love and dignity no longer exist say”! [UPROXX]
12 Famous People You Didn’t Know Were in Movies You’ve Seen - I want to know what person remembers Mumford but doesn’t remember that Zooey Deschanel is in it. How is there another circumstance for having seen Mumford? [Pajiba]
‘Can You Draw CatDog Pooping?’: 13 Fascinating Non-Celebrity Reddit AMAs - This is cool and all, but for some reason I think it’d be weirder to watch Doug poop than CatDog. And Moose from ‘You Can’t Do That On Television’. [UPROXX]
Television Sitcoms’ 10 Best Signature Dance Moves - We live in a sad, sad world where The Carlton ranks behind something from ‘Scrubs’. I may never have children. [Warming Glow]
The New Trailer For The Amazing Spider-Man Is Right Here And It Is Awesome - I can’t for the reboot in three years where Aunt May is like 35 years old and Eddie Brock is a gay Latina teen. Reboot! Reboot! [Gamma Squad]
This Week In Posters - Honestly? I don’t think I’ve liked a movie poster in years. The last one I bought was Let The Right One In. [Film Drunk]
The Maria Menounos Super Bowl Bikini Bet: A Retrospective - In case you missed it, please take a look at yesterday’s best torso. Mario Lopez was there! [With Leather]
Best Weatherman FAILS - Capital letters! If there’s one thing the Internet can agree on, it’s weather graphics that look like a penis. [HuffPost Comedy]
Awards Season GIFs: Get To Know The People Behind Your Favorite Internet Memes - An interview with strangers who made gifs. We’re through the looking glass, people. I wish the interview was just “So how do you know when to make gifs?” “I don’t know, I guess when I see something funny.” [Moviefone]
Here’s Madonna’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Extravaganza, Featuring M.I.A. Flipping America Off - And now, the real one. I would’ve given anything for Kratos to show up and brutally murder everyone on stage. [UPROXX]
Memory Lane: Vintage Nike Ads - Somebody needs to make a loop of these with the Earl Woods DID YA LEARN ANYTHING speech over it. [Smoking Section]
Subway Graffiti Artists Turn Offensive ‘Mad Men’ Ads Into Awesome ‘Mad Men’ Ads - These are awesome, but I’d be happier if someone could turn an ad into a time machine and move us forward a couple of months so we could watch this goddamn show. [Warming Glow]
Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-ray Looks Way Better Than You Ever Thought a 25-Year-Old Syndicated TV Show Could - Now let’s get Deep Space Nine out on blu-ray so people who watch Star Trek can realize they’re stupid and that it is the best ever. [Gamma Squad]
Can’t A Guy Order A Big Black Dildo Online Without Getting All Kinds Of Pervy Junkmail? - I know, I ordered 3 Superbook DVDs like four years ago and have been getting HAVE YOU HEARD THE GOOD NEWS junkmail ever since. YES I HAVE HEARD IT. [UPROXX]
Susan G. Komen Demonstrates Perfectly How To Destroy Your Brand On The Internet - I don’t think she’s a bad person, I think she’s Ozymandias and we haven’t had a time to hear her doomsday speech. [UPROXX]
Chronicle Review: Can a cheap gimmick ruin a great story? - As someone who watches a lot of pro wrestling, uh, yes, yes it can. It can also ruin bad stories. [Film Drunk]
When Drunk-Dialing Goes Wrong: Drake Sued By “Marvin’s Room” Ex - I’m gonna drunk dial my ex with a radio edited “youda youda bess” and see if she sues. Chef! [Smoking Section]
Lana Del Rey Returns To SNL In The Form Of Kristen Wiig - They needed to more directly point out that it wasn’t what she did or looked like, it was that her song sounded super bad. pBuzzfeed]
Michael Cera tries to grow a mustache. With results that are pretty much just what you’d expect - Please don’t ruin the Arrested Development movie with your stupid personal bullsh*t, Cera, the rest of the world isn’t interested in Paper Hearts. [FARK]
Steven Van Zandt Crushes ‘Sopranos’ Movie Dreams - Turns out Tony Soprano died in a plane crash, and now whenever they play Freebird they put his hat on the mic stand. [Moviefone]
Gary Oldman’s Dramatic Recounting of Snooki’s Urinary Tract Infection - Somewhere Chris Walken is getting upset about Gary stepping on his toes. [Pajiba]
A Gallery of the Most Egregious Video Game Console Knockoffs - The “Wee” mini-DVD player is more or less the Monald Muck of consoles. Also, lol @ the Super Megason. [Unreality]
These people: the reason you'll stop watching football.
Unless I can’t figure out how to get Ghorbash the Iron Hand to follow me through a ruin in Skyrim without bugging out and getting lost in the walls, this is the least important problem you’ll read about today: the NFL and Nike are concerned that if they use the Roman numeral “L” to represent the number 50 in 2016′s Super Bowl 50, people will think the Super Bowl and Nike mean “loser”. Remember when Super Bowl 30 happened and people started masturbating to it?
MyFoxDC.com expounds on the origin problem, going to great lengths to say, “hey, remember when Ace Ventura said loo-hoo-hoo zer-her? That’s what we’re worried about”.
In the 2003 book “Field Guide to Gestures,” the “loser gesture” was referenced as forming the letter L on your forehead with your index finger and thumb. The book offered a five-step primer that ended, “Say ‘loser’ with derision, generally elongating the first syllable.”
The sign has perpetuated in movies and TV shows since at least the 1990s. Most recently, the symbol was featured in promotional materials for “Glee” and has become something like a secret handshake for “Gleeks” since the show’s 2009 premiere.
L can mean a lot of things. Have you ever picked up a large shirt, looked at the tag and though “ugh, I can’t wear this, look at this tag, people will think I’m a loser“? Have you ever picked up a copy of ELLE magazine and flipped though it for LAN Party tips? Hopefully by the time 2016 rolls around, Glee will be long-canceled and the people in charge of the biggest sporting event on the planet will say, “okay, it’s a letter, let’s move on with our lives”. Or maybe they’ll call it SUPER BOWLL and go for a Lloyd Moseby vibe.
Until then, we have to out the people who get a hard-on from this as the world’s true losers:
“L standing for loser with a Nike swoosh right above it — I love that,” said Blake Lundberg, general manager of Adidas’ sports licensed division.
Nike’s World Headquarters Campus near Beaverton, Oregon, has a child day care facility called the Joe Paterno Child Development Center. They aren’t interested in changing the name, but they’re keeping an eye on things.
“Our relationship with Penn State remains unchanged,” Nike said in a statement. “We are deeply disturbed by the claims brought forth in the indictments. We will continue to monitor the situation closely.”
I think the most important question is HOW CLOSELY DO YOU HAVE TO MONITOR THIS? Go ahead, Mark Parker, get right up against your television screen with a magnifying glass and watch Mike McQueary equate “not calling the police when you saw children being raped” to being in a snow globe. My job as a comedy sports blogger is to type sh*t like “well at least they got rid of the Jerry Sandusky statue! I wonder why they built it in the showers! Derp!” but I am not Jay Leno and South Park episodes aside I don’t think any of this is funny. It’s f**ked up. The closest the situation should be monitored is Nike hearing “Penn State child sex scandal” ONCE. This isn’t Tiger Woods sleeping with strippers, it isn’t some gossip game for TMZ to capitalize and emphasize at will; this is a dark, scarring, systematically-abusive belch of humanity.
The worst part is that the irony of the title is less inappropriate than Nike reenacting Penn State’s stance on the scandal. The abuse to these children wasn’t reported because the people who knew about it thought it was more important to protect themselves and their reputations. That’s what Nike’s doing. Mark Parker, Nike’s president and CEO, graduated from Penn State in 1977. Paterno was called “Nike coach Joe Paterno” in Donald Katz’s 1994 book Just Do It The fact that children were sexually abused is less important than smearing the reputation of and embarrassing the college football coach with whom you’ve had a long, successful relationship. Protection of the institution.
I hate this. I hate writing about this. Nike should be making shoes and deluded basketball ads, not inquiry statements. Stop enabling rape culture, and better yet, stop making me type “rape culture” on the Internet.
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