The Sneaker Savant

With all of these pics I’m posting - you’d think I’m encouraging people to purchase fakes. Let me be clear - I am not condoning fakes at all. BUT I am happy that the fake discussion has finally taken center stage.

Remember - I’m a 40 year old man with a collection full of non-hype releases that most of your favorite ‘sneaker-lebrities’ would probably laugh at. I have no interest in walking around wearing furry yellow shoes. Or shoes that look like Ice Cream containers. Although these new releases are dope and I find them interesting - I wouldn’t be caught dead in half of them. I am not their target customer. If you’re looking at these shoes and thinking ‘man I need that pair’ - you’re probably their target customer.

And AGAIN - for this shoe - Nike and The Grateful Dead opened up a website for you to sign up to simply enter a raffle for the opportunity to buy a pair of these. Read that sentence again. They opened up a website for you to sign up to simply enter a raffle for the OPPORTUNITY to buy a pair of shoes they purposefully underproduced. And they think we should be grateful (pun intended)? I’ve seen screenshots that this wait list was more than a million people deep during different times of the day. My sources tell me they produced roughly 25,000 pairs of this shoe. What?

And for all y’all saying ‘you can’t have it both ways.’ I don’t want it both ways. I want a sneaker world that exists for style and interest and storytelling. Not for super limited drops 5 days a week. Not for a general release I missed out on a few months back at retail to suddenly be sitting at $1k+.

It’s gross. Nike is purposefully stifling supply so demand reaches absurdity. StockX is profiting off of the limited supply model by making impossible-to-keep ‘authenticity’ promises. And all of these social media companies are profiting off of the anger and jealousy and naivety of the general sneaker populace. Why is it that the only market alleviation seems to be coming from fake manufacturers and tribute-makers?