Nike contended before federal judge Eric R. Komitee that the Satan Shoes were manufactured without authorization from Nike. Nike's lawyers argued that they have "submitted evidence that even sophisticated sneakerheads were confused" by the shoes. Nike lawyers cited the Rogers test. [13] Adrenochrome, according to this misinformation, is being harvested by liberal elites from the blood of kidnapped children. The conspiracy theory holds that this drug offers a psychedelic experience and even holds the promise of immortality for those who take it.

What’s different about QAnon is that the conspiracy theory is targeting the party that is not in power. “What’s weird is that these kinds of right-wing conspiracy theories more typically arise when a Democrat is in the White House—as in, for example, the militia movement of the 1990s, which faded in influence once George W Bush was elected,” says Mark Fenster, professor of law at UF and author of Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture. Adrenochrome is a chemical that’s a byproduct of adrenaline. That’s it. It turns out you don’t need to kidnap children and drain their blood. There are many trusted chemical suppliers, in fact—which we won't be linking to, sorry—that sell it.Conspiracy theories can be like drugs,” says Brian Houston, director of the Disaster and Community Crisis Center at the University of Missouri. “If they are doing something for you psychologically, you often need more and more of that to get your fix. So the conspiracy theories just get crazier and crazier.” Robertson, Adi (March 29, 2021). "Nike sues over Lil Nas X's 'unauthorized Satan Shoes' ". The Verge . Retrieved March 30, 2021. Let’s explain what adrenochrome is, what QAnon wants you to believe it is, but is definitely not, and what’s the harm in believing in such misinformation. What is adrenochrome? In two works on one edge of the genre – David Rudkin’s BBC drama Penda’s Fen and Peter Shaffer’s play Equus – sexual confusion is also at work. But, although there is horror, there is no murderous crowd. To the jaded psychiatrist in Equus, the young man he is treating possesses an enviable ecstasy, even if the youth’s sexual feelings and instinct for worship are directed at a horse. Behind all Freudianism, the play taps the root of a connection to the wild.

a b Dessem, Matthew (March 29, 2021). "Conservatives Are Enraged at Lil Nas X and His "Satan Shoes" ". Slate Magazine . Retrieved March 30, 2021. Adrenochrome is a drug that's the subject of a false and dangerous conspiracy theory being spread by QAnon followers.Nike released a statement in response to the controversy generated, saying "Nike did not design or release these shoes and we do not endorse them". [14] Additionally, the company initiated a lawsuit against MSCHF, alleging that they had made consumers believe that "Nike is endorsing satanism" and that the shoes and their promotion represented trademark infringement, false designation of origin, trademark dilution, and unfair competition. [15] [16] [17] And if you’re wondering why it is important to pay attention to this sort of thing, well, let's start with the fact that more than two dozen congressional candidates have shared QAnon material or even appeared on QAnon shows. Like it or not, there are signs the group's influence is growing.

Shaffer, Claire (March 29, 2021). "Lil Nas X Releases Unofficial 'Satan' Nikes With Real Human Blood". Rolling Stone . Retrieved March 30, 2021. It is a place that is both enticing and threatening. The films are symptoms of the disease they purport to diagnose: manifestations of our troubled, citified response to anything natural, beautiful and not mechanical. Sometimes, these works seek to unnerve us through fear while still reaching for an enchanted vision of landscape and rural peace. But the ecstatic quietness of Samuel Palmer’s paintings of Shoreham, or Wordsworth’s universal Cumbria, do not sit well with gothic shudders. The anxiety undoes the idyll and, rather than imagining a visionary Britain, folk horror evokes a land haunted by the past, by old nightmares, by sex. But this victory for “decent people” looks manic: the grins are forced, all doubt is suppressed. In their portrayal of the crowd, these films display a kind of power worship – the mob over the individual. Later, we may side with another crowd, the revengers, but that identification will be just as dehumanising. As long as there is blood and suffering, we are supposed to be satisfied. When they finally appear, the cultists are empty, faceless, uninterested in their own self-preservation, thanking the men who torture them, charging carelessly into a hail of bullets. Only mayhem, cruelty and violence engages them. As one, they politely applaud each extreme act of violence, their bland automatic approval part of the ritual.Ultimately, this ghastly applause tells us that the cultists are the cinema audience. The pagan rite we are witnessing is the film itself. A sense of complicity was always part of folk horror. The gang-rape and murder in Blood on Satan’s Claw begins from the victim’s point of view, but then plays out through the watching mob’s lascivious gaze. The killing crowd in these movies is us. Kiefer, Halle (March 29, 2021). "Nike Clarifies It Doesn't Endorse Lil Nas X's Satan Shoes, Now With Human Blood". Vulture . Retrieved March 30, 2021.