Lil Nas X has called out double standards after skateboarding legend Tony Hawk drew blood for his merch just as Lil did.
Lil Nas X is wondering as to why Tony Hawk’s new blood-infused skateboard’s reaction has been different compared to when he released limited-edition sneakers that included a drop of human blood.
In March, Lil Nas X released a collection of 666 “Satan Shoes,” Nike Air Max 97 sneakers that contained a pentagram, an inverted cross, and a drop of real human blood.
The footwear, which was part of a collaboration between the rapper and the New York-based art collective MSCHF and sold out quickly but stirred controversy.
Nike told CNN the company was not involved in creating the modified sneakers. Nike later sued MSCHF and then reached a legal settlement in which the art collective agreed to voluntarily recall the shoes.
Tony Hawk, the skateboarding champion and canned water company Liquid Death Mountain Water launched a limited collection of 100 skateboards printed with the athlete’s real blood.
The group tweeted on Tuesday: “And yes, we sterilized it first”.
The line has already sold out.
Lil Nas X has later spoken out about the double standards and took to Twitter to call out the lack of “public outrage” surrounding Hawk’s new blood-infused skateboards.
He tweeted:” Now that tony hawk has released skateboards with blood painted on them, and there was no public outrage, are y’all ready to admit y’all were never actually upset over the blood in the shoes? and maybe u were mad for some other reason?”
The Satan Shoes cause a bit of a commotion because they had a pentagram attached to the front, and featured a reference to Luke 10:18, a Bible verse about Satan’s fall from heaven, they also contained a drop of human blood in the sole, drawn from members of the MSCHF team.
At $1,018 each, all 666 available pairs sold out in less than a minute, while Nike was pressed to deny any involvement in the custom sneakers. Lil Nas’ “Satan Shoes” was released following his Montero (Call Me By Your Name) video.
Legendary skateboarder, Tony Hawk’s limited edition run of boards had been decorated with paint infused with his blood.
Tony captioned the video: “Always read the fine print!”, thanking Liquid Death for assisting him with this “rare opportunity”.
He also warned to “be careful with my life force” and said that he was “looking forward” to future “collaborations” – as long as they didn’t “involve replicants”.
Fans quickly grabbed the 100 boards immediately, with a portion of profits from the $500 skateboard going to anti-plastic nonprofit 5 Gyres as well as Tony’s organization, The Skateboard Project.
The rapper’s controversial sneakers sold out under a minute back in March, while Tony’s limited-edition skateboard line sold out within 20 minutes.
Tony’s post accumulated more than 1,463,316 views, 222,050 likes, and 3,767 comments, with several users leaving comments like “this is weird as hell”.
Lil Nas’ Twitter post has amassed more than 95,400 likes, 11,800 retweets, and 775 comments, with fans once more having different reactions.
He got the phrase “nah he tweakin’” trending as he reacted to the bizarre merchandise. The now-infamous phrase has spread like wildfire and fans have been wondering what it means.
“Tweaking” is slang for doing or saying something off the wall or ridiculous, in this case including blood in the paint of the skateboard. Others tried to argue that neither homophobia nor racism had been at play, suggesting the only issue was with the Satanic nature of the shoe.
One person reacted by saying: “I don’t think it has to do with the blood per se more of you put blood in a shoe then had a religious reference on the shoe and older Christians were not gonna be okay with a gay man making a mockery of their religion. Tony hawk left religion alone.”
A second agreed and wrote: “Dude if you had said they were angel shoes with the blood of Christ they would’ve sold like a mu fuh! Fact is you tied it to satanic symbolism, I thought they were awesome, but they thought that was worse than R Kelly!”
Someone else added: “The same company did Jesus shoes with soles filled with Holy Water. Nobody cared, they sold out and nobody yelled blasphemy!”
However, Agreeing with Lil Nas X, one fan pointed out that Tony was deemed “okay” as he was a “cishet, white dude selling skateboards with his blood infused into the paint”.
The rapper also drew controversy over the music video for the song, which contains religious and sexually explicit imagery and depicts him pole-dancing in Hell and then giving the devil a lap dance.
The Twitterverse is divided as to whether the difference in backlash was racially and homophobically driven or whether it was Lil Nas X’s enhanced anti-Christ metaphors that irritated people.
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