Nike Tech Kid

About

The Nike Tech Kid refers to a Latino boy modeling in ads for the Nike Tech fleece tracksuit in Nike's online store starting in mid-2022. He became the subject of memes on Twitter and elsewhere due to his gaze and slightly chubby appearance. In December 2022, it was rumored on TikTok that the Nike Tech Kid had committed suicide due to his parent's divorce. Thereafter, the term "Nike Tech Kid Dead" trended en masse.

Origin

Starting in April 2022, Nike photographed a new boy model for their "Nike Sportswear Tech Fleece Big Kids' (Boys') Full-Zip Hoodie" advertisements on their website, evident from parallel Pinterest ^[1] posts around the same time. The primary photo showed the boy wearing a grey color (shown below).

A few months later, Nike's Instagram started sponsoring the aforementioned photograph, having it appear at random on the feeds of Instagram users, prompting them to use Instagram's "shop" feature to buy the product. Inspired by the sponsored ad, known fashion parody Twitter^[2] account BrailledFOTW tweeted a screenshot of the Instagram ad on August 8th, 2022, gaining roughly 10,000 likes in four months (shown below).

Spread

After BrailledFOTW's tweet, the Nike Tech Kid appeared in memes on Twitter^[3][4] in September and October 2022. For instance, on September 11th, 2022, rapper Kankan tweeted^[5] an image of the Nike Tech Kid through a FaceApp filter that made him look obese, captioning it, "my album release fit ##W2G" and gaining roughly 6,400 likes in three months (shown below).

Nike Tech Kid Dead Hoax on TikTok

On December 20th, 2022, TikToker^[6] cyka.blyat.x posted a photo slideshow to the app that started a rumor that the Nike Tech Kid had committed suicide due to his parent's divorce. The slideshow included three photos with one being a fake news article screenshot that read, "Infamous Nike Tech Kid Commits Suicide." In one day, the slideshow received roughly 333,200 plays and 30,800 likes (photos shown below).

Following the death hoax started by the slideshow, TikTok videos surfaced that humorously mourned the imagined death, like one video uploaded by TikToker^[7] stolenpcs on December 20th, 2022, which received roughly 182,100 plays and 5,900 likes in one day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References