Link here

As a materials scientist, I always feel strangely left out of badscience discussions. There's plenty of people willing to comment publicly on their mistaken understanding of evolution or quantum mechanics, yet people are strangely reticent to make bold assertions on graphene nanoplatelets. So I couldn't pass this up.

Not all protection sprays work this way. This is specifically because it uses nanotechnology surfaces to create a very smooth surface, allowing water to flow off the shoe without breaking its surface tension.

Referring to something as a nanotechnology surface is perhaps a bit weird. The explanation of how the spray works is also incorrect, at least according to the manufacturer's claims (the manufacturer claims that they utilise the lotus effect, which is usually replicated by a combination of micro- or nano- particulates in a hydrophobic coating)

The use of 'nanotechnology surface' causes outrage, and brings this monster to life

No, it's not. Chemistry and molecular behavior are not the same as nanotechnology, and a layman using that term to sell someone on a product is ridiculous. Nanotechnology involves machines or mechanisms that directly manipulate specific, individual molecules. Because a shoe spray works on a molecular level (just like every other chemical compound ever) does not mean it has anything to do with nanotechnology whatsoever.

(emphasis added)

This is an entirely incorrect definition of nanotechnology. It sounds like an entirely sci-fi definition, hinting at nano-bots and replicators. Unfortunately the actual definition is much more mundane (technology that operates at the nano-scale). The posted definition would exclude pretty much all the nano-technology that currently exists, as well as dramatically limiting the scope of nanotechnology (what about nanomaterials that generate energy?)

I do have some sympathy to being annoyed at the co-opting of science terminology by commercial products (Looking at you, Finish Quantum), but this is one of the few times where it's potentially correctly applied.

Dude I hate doing the credentials pissing match thing, but I do know what I'm talking about.

I love watching credentials pissing matches. No matter what, all the participants end up covered in piss.

The guy who inspired me to pursue physics as a career, Richard Feynman, is commonly credited with forming the first clear path for the field in question here. Here's the wiki page on that for easy reading.

"There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" was a lecture given by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959. Feynman considered the possibility of direct manipulation of individual atoms as a more powerful form of synthetic chemistry than those used at the time. The talk went unnoticed and it didn't inspire the conceptual beginnings of the field. In the 1990s it was rediscovered and publicised as a seminal event in the field, probably to boost the history of nanotechnology with Feynman's reputation.

Oh no, they were inspired by Richard Feynman, there's no way they could be incorrect. This is in response to being given a correct definition of nanotechnology (from a nanotechnology institute, no less). Funnily enough a 55 year old lecture by Feynman probably isn't the best source for what the current scope of nanotechnology is, any more than reading 'On the Origin of Species' would give you an understanding of the detailed genetic studies that constitute the current work carried out in evolutionary biology.