When Instagram first started making waves, I was simply against it. I already had a Myspace, Twitter and Facebook hangover and simply didn’t understand how yet another social media platform could or would enhance my life in any way.
I worked for a now-defunct social media platform at the time as a web developer, and a lot of my work depended on working cohesively with other social media platforms, so I had to test my code against other platforms often. I was so annoyed with the idea of having to create another social media presence that I initially refused to. I used my bosses Instagram account as my test account instead creating my own. It was kind of funny, really, because creating another account should be such an innocuous thing, but these were my early days of fighting against internet ‘progress.’ I still remember my bosses account (and I still, actually, follow it). I saw pictures of her on vacation, with her boyfriend, with her dog. Just a random chronicling of her life of random things within her instagram that look nothing like they do now.
When I told my buddy about this great idea I had about starting a sneaker grading company, my business plan specified only ONE form of marketing: eBay. Although he agreed, he told me that I needed to create an Instagram account. I told him I had no interest. He told me it was a sure thing. I told him ‘meh’. And like a good friend - he went ahead and created an account for me anyway. And labored, day and night, to build me a following. Keep in mind, this dude wasn’t a sneakerhead, but he started posting like he was. He was mining me for information and posting accordingly. And within a few months, he had a couple thousand followers. I never really understood how he did it - but, man, what a base to start with: I started paying attention to Instagram at that point.
At first, I tried to match my branding. Judicious. Serious. Serious about sneakers.
And that worked, I suppose, for a while.
But after a while, I realized that I was putting on a front. I was posting things that didn’t really interest me in the interest of maintaining an image.
And, I suppose, it was good, as it got the name and goal out there. But at some point I realized that my branding didn’t exactly match my personality. What I thought was meant to become a company was really starting to turn more into ‘me’. And so I started posting more personality-based things. Personal preferences with sneakers, personal stories with sneakers, personal struggles with sneakers. And to my surprise, it blossomed into a pretty cool follower base.
The pandemic accelerated things, with me becoming especially vulnerable online through my Instagram account and a lot of people finding comfort or interest in it: this resulted in some explosive growth for me: approximately 17,500 followers.
To a lot of people, this might sound like nothing. But to me, this number is enormous. I remember going to Warriors games at Oracle Arena and them saying that there were roughly 19,500 seats. And to think…there are almost that many people that follow me on Instagram…all because I like to talk about sneakers. It’s insane.
Along the way, I’ve gone through many personas and dug into many different aspects of myself to discuss sneakers. Some of it - a bit personal, some of it - intentionally misleading, some of it - just messing around. All of it has it’s place, but it makes me wonder what I’ve lost (or gained) in the instagramification of an interest.
Before instagram, my goal with sneakers was to present myself as such: someone that cared about what went on my feet. As a matter of principal, it was never about ‘keeping up with the culture’, it was about me finding something I liked and making it mine. A lot like what Bobbito described in ‘Where’d You Get Those?’
But when IG came along, a lot of it felt like I had to somehow manage to fit in to stay in the conversation. There are a lot of sneaker tropes that have taken root on IG, so much so that I have found it altering my personal taste. This isn’t strictly a problem with IG, but social media in general.
Before IG: my sneaker taste was largely private, personal, and attuned to my feelings.
After IG: my sneaker tastes became largely open, public, and measured by the community.
Even as a 45-year-old male, I sometimes find myself thinking, would my IG people find a picture of these shoes interesting and worthy of engagement?
It’s a strange feeling…going from I should post what I like to I should post what the algorithm will like, and it brings up all kinds of feelings of shame and embarrassment for someone that should know better. But when you have an Oracle-Arena-sized following, you start to ask yourself…how do I appease these people? …and you forget to ask yourself…how do I appease myself?
And now that I’m 45 going on 46, where does that position me for ‘old age’? Where do I go from here? Am I still going to be posting about how sneakers make me ‘feel’ at 50? Am I still going to be posting about the memories they create at 50? Or am I striving for something more?
To think about where I’ll be with this in 5 years, I also have to think about where Instagram will be in 5 years. And if the past 10 years on IG is any indication, I will have my work cut out for me.
Instagram and social media tends to reward the lowest common denominator. Instagram tends to reward those insights that are at or just below the surface. So the deep, deep work needs to exist elsewhere. The major stories are saved, shared, and passed around…but the little ones just seem to fade away. Instagram favors speed over context. Spectacle over meaning. General consensus under regionality. And visibility over participation. Sneaker culture will survive on social media, but on the parts that perform well on a screen will be remembered. The actual lived experiences? Those will exist in blogs like Nick Engvalls…and…mine (in no way am I comparing our output beyond the ‘love’ of it).
Although it’s small, there does exist a cadre of sneakerheads that actively seek to keep these stories alive, despite the compression of the culture that has come to define sneaker IG. The stories on Niketalk, (the ‘Smushcalade,’ and the Harlem Shake, and #NTDenim, and…) will continue to fade away if folks like us don’t seek to save it. I consider myself lucky, proud, and validated to be a part of @itsthestoriesthatmatter : a group of collectors that are more interested in remembering than they are of winning.
And maybe that’s what I’m here to protect. My personal, stated goal has always been to preserve the sneaker realities that are at risk of being lost, and I’ve been able to articulate that more clearly with Substack than I ever could with Instagram.
I’ve asked myself more times than I can count: how can I participate in this culture without consuming so much? that I didn’t even realize that Instagram isn’t actually the culture that I fell in love with; but Instagram is the culture that put a lot of these sneaker opportunities in my path. Opportunities that I don’t think I could have gotten without Instagram. For all its flaws, it’s helped countless people build countless relationships with countless others (and companies). It’s fascinating to think about the scope of its impact…whatever it is, it’s not small.
So maybe that’s the price of mainstream acceptance of a culture. The nuances hide away while the narrative keeps the money coming.
Let me be clear: I’m not burnt out on sneakers. But I AM burned out on performing my relationship with sneakers on Instagram. After it’s all said and done…it seems my goal was to prove my worth. And when I accepted, at whichever point it was, that I was done trying to prove my worth, I decided that my goal would be to own it. Own who I am. Own what I want. And when it comes to sneakers, I want to be the guy that does his best to keep it above (or below) the consumerism aspect. I feel a responsibility…a stewardship…to help future ‘heads understand what things were like for us, which is not what the popular places on the internet would leave you to believe it actually was. The internet remembers arcs. I want us to remember details.
At a certain point, I had to stop thinking of what I was doing as ‘content’ and more as something of importance; hence, the reason for a substack. I wanted off the ever-changing treadmill of IG. I had to think of my memories and my documentation and my stories as a historical record instead of something in need for the algorithm.
I’m not great at predicting the future when it comes to sneakers, so I have no idea where Instagram will be in 5 years, but I hope that I have established myself as someone that can exist outside of a community based on shock value and and engagement. I seek to be the guy that writes things down before they are lost to the sands of the internet.
If this is what aging in sneakers looks like, I’m ok with taking the long way around.