Is ACG the Next Lululemon in Trail?

Sean Haworth on ACG’s “activation” at this weekend’s Gorge races shared on Instagram the sentiment in a story that will disappear within 24hrs so I can’t link to it directly. The highlights form his post:

Nike proving again that they’re the queen of trying to buy cool. This is everything personally never wanted in trail running.

Reminds me of the Lululemon FURTHER campaign.
…
The art is beautiful. The design is so, so good. They did it better than it’s ever been done in trail, in my opinion.

And still, I find it all lacking substance. Lacking soul.

Lacking what I and many others love about the mountains, trail races, running, and about this community.

Woof. Is that it? Is that what’s been irking me about this massive rollout? I agree that “they did it better than it’s ever been done in trail”. And yet, something felt off and I can’t quite put my finger on it yet. What I 100% want to steer away from just sounding like I’m gatekeeping here. I don’t feel like ACG is “ruining my perspective of trail running”, that’s not it.

Maybe it’s just that they used too much orange… like Lululemon did a few years ago already.