The Satisfy x Adidas Subculture Heist

When Punk and Hardcore Become a Brand Activation

A lot has already been said about The Circle Pit, the Satisfy and Adidas brand activation and shoe collab launch. If you want to dig deeper here is a selection of excellent articles by some of my much-respected fellow running writers:

Thoughts While Running #38

Calling It Cringe Lets Them Off the Hook

Running Supply #80: When A Niche Brand Goes Mainstream

The internet had a fit.

The Rise Of Performative Running Culture

At first, I did not want to add anything.

The event had already done what these things do now. It split the internet for a few days. Selectively invited and paid influencers posted they had a “great time”. A large part of the running community reacted with mainly two words I kept seeing in comment sections over and over again: cringe and corny. That was before comments and posts started to disappear, get cleaned up, or be replaced by polished, streamlined brand footage.

There are many reasons why this event WTF’ed a lot of people. But the main reason it bothered me so much has not been discussed yet:

The exploitation of the punk and hardcore subculture.

A Life Before The Look

I am not a scene gatekeeper. I am genuinely happy for every person who finds punk, hardcore, Straight Edge, running, or any other thing that gives their life more direction, language, friendship, hope or friction, like these things gave me.

I also do not think I know everything better. I do not claim that my own running brand, Willpower, does everything right. That comparison would not even make much sense. Willpower comes from a completely different place, with a completely different scale and purpose than Satisfy, let alone Adidas.

I am writing this because this disturbing brand theatre in the desert moved something personal in me.

Punk entered my life when I was seven or eight, shortly after my parents got divorced. My life was loud and angry, and so was the soundtrack. Hardcore and Straight Edge followed when I was sixteen, and I mean it in the most literal sense I can: they saved my life.

I had started drinking heavily at twelve. Without hardcore and Straight Edge, I probably would have become another small-town fuck-up, and certainly an alcoholic.

Instead, punk and hardcore gave me a clear mind (not always a pleasure), lifelong friendships, ethics, an outlet for anger, a way into the world, empathy, self-reflection, political instinct, and a foundation for almost everything good that came later in my life, including running.

So yes, maybe I take this a little personally.

(Ca. 1996, i was one of the very few kids in the scene with long’ish hair, cute isn’t it)

No Holy Scene

I have no interest in romanticizing hardcore as a holy place. It never was.

The scene has always been too white, too male, and in large parts painfully superficial. Some bands have absolutely nothing to say and some shows would probably be more honestly announced as amateur MMA events.

There is plenty of shadow in that world.

Still, compared to many other subcultures and music scenes, hardcore has held on to a surprisingly stubborn agreement around a few things that make sense: community, DIY spirit, equality, positive thinking aka P.M.A., animal rights, self-criticism, social criticism, and the very basic understanding that Nazis are shit.

That does not make hardcore innocent. But it makes it worth defending from those who want the look without the weight.

Fashion Wearing Hardcore

[This Paragraph has been updated]¹

This is where Satisfy bothers me.

Brice Partouche may have his own history with punk, hardcore, and Straight Edge. But Satisfy as a brand does not operate like a punk or hardcore project that somehow found running. It operates like a fashion brand that moved into performance running and repeatedly reaches into punk and hardcore for underground credibility.

And that difference matters.

Personal history does not automatically make every commercial use of that history accountable. Knowing the reference does not mean carrying the responsibility.

Because the issue is not biography. It is behavior.

It is what a brand does with the things it claims to understand. It is whether it contributes to the culture or only uses it as an archive of underground credibility. It is whether the people, bands, shirts, codes, and histories remain part of a living world, or get turned into expensive proof that a product has edge.

Hardcore has always had a simple, imperfect rule: everyone can become part of it, as long as they show up with respect and give something back. You do not need a perfect biography. You do not need permission from the other kids. But you cannot just take the symbols, the shirts, the language, the tension, the dirt, and the danger, filter them through fashion, price them like fashion, and sell them back as culture.

That is not appreciation. It is exploitation.

The Pit Was Already Dead

My whole point is already revealed in the event title: “The Circle Pit”.

Yes, this comes from punk and hardcore. But let’s be honest: the circle pit has not been truly dangerous, weird, or exciting for a long time. It has become the most common crowd animation trick in heavy music. A standard move for big festivals, reunion shows, arena concerts, and bands that have long outgrown the small venues that gave them meaning in the first place.

When someone yells for a circle pit today, it usually feels cringe or corny, unless you are shit-faced enough to mistake choreography for a real mosh pit.

(How I remember the mosh pits of the 90s, Photo by xembracex)

Paid In Credibility

At least the bands at The Circle Pit brand activation were not random. Drain, One Step Closer, Jivebomb, and Upchuck brought the one thing Adidas and Satisfy obviously could never produce on their own: scene credibility.

I am not going to get too deep into why a band would agree to play a gig like this, knowing perfectly well that it has nothing to do with a hardcore show and everything to do with marketing. That is thin ice for someone who has had their own tour bus loaded with Monster Energy drinks and once played at gamescom. And yes, that was actually cool.

Suffice it to say: the average hardcore band fee is probably less than what the Adidas marketing department spends at Starbucks during their lunch break.

Straight Edge For Sale

It is worth mentioning that The Circle Pit was not Satisfy’s first reach into this world. Of all their punk and hardcore rip-offs, their Straight Edge² capsule pissed me off the most.

They sourced vintage (my friend Andy calls them “OG”) Straight Edge tees, many of them from the prime era of the 90s, overprinted them with Satisfy branding, and sold them through the Satisfy universe, with a Satisfy price tag, of course.

I own most of the shirts that were up for sale. They are in my basement and have most likely, unnoticed, upgraded themselves into homegrown MothTech by now. I still have them, despite all of them being size XL, because that was basically the only size available in the 90s. And the reason I never sold them to Mills Vintage is exactly this: I do not want anyone to make 190 dollars from them, and I do not want anyone to pay 200 dollars for them.

Those shirts carried real meaning for me. Wearing their message gave me strength and confidence when I needed it most. They were not just merch. They were proof that you had shown up, supported the bands, and become part of the world those words came from.

Straight Edge was never a trend, and it was never fashion. In fact, it was not even a subculture or a scene. It is a decision. A deeply personal one, made for a lifetime. And after more than 30 years, it still holds. At least for me.

Taking that depth and meaning, printing a brand logo over it, and selling it back as premium running culture to rich kids is already cynical.

The fact that Satisfy released a 420 stoner-themed collection only a few weeks later makes the whole thing almost too perfect as a symbol.

One drop, Straight Edge. Another one, weed culture. Whatever makes Satisfy appear edgy and underground. Whatever can be turned into a product.

Bridges, Not Campaigns

As I mentioned before, I am not a gatekeeper. In fact, running and hardcore merge surprisingly well. There is a real bridge between them. One that allowed me to move from one passion to another, and one that offers the same possibility to anyone, in both directions. I wrote about that overlap in Like the Wind Magazine #28:

"The Two Things That Still Hold True"

But real bridges are built through people, time, care, and contribution. Fake ones are built through campaigns.

Since I do not want to be that grumpy old hardcore kid only complaining from the side of the room, here is an example of how this can be done well: Diadora’s Squadra di Corsa.

The punk and hardcore references there feel authentic because they appear through long-standing relationships, not brand theatre. Bridges built by people who are actually connected to that world. The president of Diadora USA, Bryan Poerner, comes from the hardcore-punk scene, and you can feel the difference between someone carrying a history and someone shopping for one.

And that difference matters.

A brand can touch a subculture with care. Or it can walk in, steal the symbols, book the bands, pay the influencers, film the pogo dancing (cringe alarm), sell the shoe, and call the whole thing underground culture.

That is what The Circle Pit felt like.

And people exposed it. Runners and hardcore kids alike. They decoded it because something real was being used to sell something expensive.

That is where corny turns ugly.

The problem was not a bunch of influencers running on a pump track. The problem was the exploitation of a subculture that stands for everything Satisfy and adidas are not.

1. Correction / Update: An earlier version of this article implied that Brice Partouche had no personal roots in punk or hardcore. After publication, Partouche reached out and clarified that he grew up skateboarding, played in hardcore bands throughout the 90s, and is still Straight Edge. I have corrected that framing. My criticism of Satisfy’s use of punk, hardcore, and Straight Edge aesthetics in brand and product contexts remains.

2. For those unfamiliar with Straight Edge, the Wikipedia entry is well-written and basically sums it up well. If you want to hear it from me, here is a recent article I wrote about Straight Edge and Running.