Nike Sweatshop Viral Moment

A story about how Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti created viral content before starting Buzzfeed through a clever interaction with Nike's customization service.

"Nike had this feature called personalized ID where you could write your name on your shoes. Jonah Peretti writes an email to nikeidpersonalized@nike.com saying:

'Greetings, my order was canceled but my Nike ID does not violate any of the outlined rules in your message. The personal ID on my custom shoes was the word 'sweatshop.' Sweatshop is not a name of another party's trademark, the name of an athlete, or profanity. I chose the ID because I wanted to remember the toil and labor of the children that made my shoes. Could you please ship them to me immediately? Thanks and happy new year, Jonah Peretti.'

He screenshots that email and put it out there, which created a big news storm. He was doing stunts like this before creating Buzzfeed, and it showed this guy knows how to make content go viral on the internet."