10 Things Sneaker Advertisements Taught Us That Were Not True

Dammit, Mars.

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As much as most of us would like to "be like Mike," it doesn't always work out that way. Actually hardly ever. We'd love to be able to slip on a pair of Air Jordans and take flight from the foul line, or slip on a pair of Crocs to get laid, but sometimes the promises of advertisements leave us coming up short of the perceived value of a pair of sneakers. Not that we're planning on giving up the sneakerhead lifestyle anytime soon, in fact, the greatest sneaker advertisements are often the ones that offer the biggest fairy tales. It's not like you really thought wearing Skechers Shape-Ups was going to get you a shot at Kim Kardashian, did you? Come on, Yeezy taught you better than that. Check out 10 Things Sneaker Advertisements Taught Us That Were Not True and let us know if you'll be slipping on Crocs anytime soon.

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When Michael Jordan unexpectedly retired in the summer of 1993, it caught just about everyone by surprise. He was coming off his third straight championship, his third straight Finals MVP, his seventh straight scoring title. He was just 30 years old, and clearly still in his prime. No one wanted to believe it was true. So Nike's brilliant ad, hosted by Steve Martin, which showed a poorly disguised MJ suiting up to play for various minor league squads was almost believeable. But no, he was just playing baseball. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

It is a difficult truth to accept, and one that some people never do, but clothes - from the peak of your fitted to the soles of your sneakers - do not make the man. If you're a hopeless doofus and you buy a Supreme shirt, you do not instantly become the epitome of cool. You are just a doofus in a cool shirt. And if Kanye West wears, say, Crocs, it does not make him a doofus. Instead, it makes all the doofuses AND the cool kids want Crocs. You are who you are, not what you wear. So sorry.

We did the math several times, and no matter how many ways we tried it, it's pretty clear that if you fall down seven times you can only get up seven times. It's simply impossible to get up twice from the same fall. The only way this makes sense is if you count "getting up in the morning" as one of the eight, which seems pretty disingenuous to us.

Man, listen. We're not trying to get on Larry Johnson's grandmother's bad side. If you provide the genetic material (well, a quarter of it) for a Larry Johnson - NBA All-Star and ferocious amateur boxer - you're probably a bad-ass yourself. But we're still pretty sure that Larry's grandmama didn't have the same hops as her more-famous descendant. She probably had harlequin glasses, though.

Whenever we try and picture Kevin Garnett in the science club, all we can imagine is him repeatedly knocking someone's hands away as they try fruitlessly to light their bunsen burner. Then maybe him loudly cussing himself out after an experiment gone wrong. No, it wouldn't have worked out well at all. Especially with Li'l Penny, whose own michievous streak would have landed them both in detention. Besides, they didn't even go to the same high school. We checked.

Honestly, we would hope your personal trainer has better taste in sneakers. Although with Kim Kardashian, who even looks at her sneakers?

Sometimes we want to believe the simplest solutions are possible. That Cliff's Notes are just as good as the book, that steroids will allow us to hit 70 home runs, that switching sneakers will allow us to cross people over like Allen Iverson, dunk on people like Charles Barkley and switch hardflip triple sets like Paul Rodriguez. Well, no, not really. There are other things that factor into it, like hours upon hours of hard work and good genetics. The proper sneakers will probably keep you from getting injured, and maybe make you more comfortable. But actually make you better? That's all up to you. (Yes, we are talking about practice.)

It was a brilliant commercial, but it was wrong. Charles Barkley was indeed a role model. To some, he still is. "Role model" is not something you choose to be, it's something others make you. You cannot decline the position, and protesting that others are more deserving does not work. Athletes are indeed role models, which is why they should avoid spitting on little girls and throwing drunken gentlemen through plate glass windows. Er, hypothetically speaking.

Not only did Ken Griffey Jr. not run for President in 1996, he wasn't even eligible, as he was only 26 years old on election day. And even if he could have (for the record, we think he would have trounced Clinton and Dole), being leader of the free world might have made it difficult for him to continue at his other job. Which, if we must remind you, he was pretty good at.

Michael Jordan always tried to tell Mars Blackmon, and through Mars, us. "Is it the shoes?" Mars would plaintively cry. "No Mars," Michael would retort, calm as a Buddhist monk. But you could see just how badly Mars Blackmon - both height- and vision-challenged - wanted to believe. And so did we. We wanted to believe, no, to KNOW, that the latest Air Jordans would make us every bit as cool as the guy whose name and silhouette was on every pair. And whie Michael himself spoke the truth, it was Mars we identified with, Mars whom we hoped against all hope was right. He was wrong.