A dying breed?
A large portion of my life has been influenced by sneakers. Yeah, sneakers. I was (am?) a member of a subculture obsessed with those rubber soled things you put on your feet everyday to protect your feet from the elements. I’m a NikeTalk forum reading, shoe cleaning, sneaker cleaning, duck walking sneaker fiend.
Okay, maybe not so much. But, there’s a little part of me that validates every sneaker cliche you can think of. While I’ve matured from an obsessive teenager and might not pay attention to the sneaker “scene” as closely or obsessively as I once did, I’m still very much just as passionate about my shoes as I once was. But is the culture “dead”?
Spurred by an interest in “Performance Basketball Footwear,” my sneaker obsession started by reading Kicksology, a niche site dedicated to reviewing basketball shoes for the benefit of any internet savvy basketball player. I was enamoured with the time, effort and energy it took to design a shoe that could perform and look good (Pretty sure this spurred my interest in design). The shoes I loved and wanted were ones that I loved because I loved their design – not because my whole class wanted them or Wince Carter jumped over Gary Payton in them (although, that probably did influence me just a bit). (This was sometime in the early “aughts” (2000’s).
When I got into sneakers, the subculture was showing signs of reaching its critical mass. The internet enabled those passionate sneaker hunters, intent on breaking necks to network like never before and share their obsession with millions others. The one and only NikeTalk became my daily reading destination, and it was the same for many others.
Of course, this had its advantages and disadvantages. Shoes that we wanted were becoming more easily accessible via increased distribution and the internet. But, this also meant big corporate dudes were taking notice; they began to manufacture demand and created artificially limited products, satisfying every sneakerhead’s desire to “break necks.” Less underground sites and outlets like Sole Collector Magazine (whose purpose/effect on the culture is up for debate) began to surface and it was evident the culture was now mainstream.
Sneakers aren’t anything “special” now. Everyone reads Hypebeast and the rest of the fashion blogs and sneakers are just another element of a hypebeast’s wardrobe. Now everyone’s a sneakerhead, clamoring over the next limited edition sneaker, or whatever’s hype on the message boards – all to get props from another dude who reads the same blog he does.
Okay, okay. I read the blogs too, but I don’t buy everything I see there. And when it comes to sneakers, it’s easy to say “sneaker culture is dead.” The proliferation of blogs and manufactured demand has created literal hype beasts who don’t understand what or why they’re buying what they’re buying. Sneaker culture started from people buying shoes that they liked because they actually liked the product for whatever reason it was. Their favourite ball player would wear it, the dope boy down the street had ‘em, or it was simply a dope silhouette. “Neck breaking” was born out of a mutual interest between peers. These peer’s mutual interests is what made them break necks when they saw others’ hot kicks. A set of peers defined their own interests — not the company’s like Nike or Adidas. Limited happened more often than not because the companies just didn’t realize there was a demand, leading to messed up distribution. Now, distribution is so micromanaged, limited edition means nothing – and to a real ‘head, limited edition never meant anything, anyways. If you wanted it, you were getting it.
The culture that NikeTalk helped establish in the early 2000’s is dead. There’s no doubt about it. At that time, sneakers were just a different thing and heads were willing to help each other out and genuinely liked some dope sneakers. Now the culture is much more of an artificial, hype driven machine. That’s not to say every shoe out there is whack or that tastes/trends don’t change. But it’s clear that the true “sneaker head” is more of a rare breed than a dying one. They’re the ones who’ll buy a sneaker because they truly like it. Not because someone else does.
