Episode 09: Jordan Dinwiddie
Jordan Dinwiddie: Associate Creative Director at Wieden + Kennedy
Interviewed by Rashad Floyd
I want people to know that someone who looks like me can make a Comic Book, win a Cannes Lion Award, have their own Newsletter, can Play Video Games, Love Books, be a good Daughter, a good Person and a good Friend. That's really what I care about. Oh, and can write ads for Nike. Capitalism is always the last thing on my mind.
Being Black is great, but being a Black woman is better. Where I grew up, I was always surrounded by Black women. My grandmother had two girls, my mother had two girls, my aunt has two girls. I've always been surrounded by Black women who worked, read, were loud, smoked cigarettes, and were unapologetically themselves. Where I grew up, I was surrounded by sports, music, comic books, anime— all that nerd stuff. It all got put into a pot, and out came me. I didn't have the language for it yet, but I definitely knew I wanted to work in a field that dictated what was cool.
I had a blog about a certain singer who’s name rhymes with fiancé. Someone thought it was funny and said, “you should be using this voice and this point of view to help write social ads”. I said, “Sure! I don't really know what I'm doing, but sure.” I got an internship at this place fresh from Chicago, and I didn't know what Oregon looked like before I got off the plane. I showed up at Wieden & Kennedy and they told me I would be doing social strategy for Nike. Cool, great! Oh my gosh! That is excellent! Put me on basketball because that's all I care about. I care about basketball, and I care about tennis because Serena Williams. As long as I'm working on those two things, cool. I wrote a bunch of tweets and YouTube copy. My creative director thought they were all really funny and that I should be writing the ads, not tweets about these ads. I thought, “Oh well, I'm gonna step it up.” You know what I mean? I'm going to kick that door open.
The account that I work on thrives on pushing culture forward and is a staple in Black households, and in the culture. I got there and I was like, “Oh, it's white people doing this!” You know what I mean? And I realized very early they needed me here, because it doesn't move without someone of the culture being in the room, or else they're all perpetrating. Who likes Sam's Choice? No one! You like Pepsi, or you like Coca-Cola, and I’m a fresh can of Coke. That's why I am my full self in these spaces; because I had to make sure that I was doing justice by my people. If they really want what they told me they wanted, I'm going to give you that. I'm gonna give you exactly that. I don't want to be Hurricane Jordan, but they’re going to know I was here. I am able to really be in rooms I never thought I'd be in. Rooms I dreamt about being in.
I will talk about the things that I want to talk about, and apply them to the work that I want to do. If I can allow other Black people to feel safe within what they love and what they enjoy, I've done my job. If I were to say something to my 15 year old self, I would say..“Everything that you put up on your bedroom wall, cutting out all those Double XL magazines, everything that you were passionate about then, you are getting paid to be passionate about now. You are still you, with a bit more money. You still make mistakes. You will continue to use your words anyway that you can. You will live every fantasy that you've ever wanted to live and more.” That's all I got. Anything else? What else do you want?
