A lot of people outside of California don’t understand the magnitude of the regional distinctions within California. For it’s size and the residents within - California - could be pretty neatly split in two and act as two different states: Northern and Southern. This probably wouldn’t change much politically or economically, but it might in the minds of those that find these types of distinctions important. Northern California is mostly trees and forests and mountains. Southern California is mostly sunshine and beaches. With a few massive cities through in.
In the early 2000’s, there was no better time to be a fan of the sport of Basketball if you were in California: the Lakers and the Kings has an epic rivalry. It puts to shame the ‘rivalry’ of the Clippers and the Warriors of the mid 2010’s, as both the Lakers and Kings would find themselves in the conference semi-finals yearly for several years in a row.
The Lakers had Shaq & Kobe, and a pretty serious supporting cast. The Kings has Webber and Bibby, and an equally serious supporting cast. Anyone - a Laker or Kings fan - would admit that the Kings had a better team, but the Lakers had better superstars, and as history has shown: the Lakers always ended up winning down the stretch.
I played a ton of basketball at the time, and being that I was into sneakers, I was one of a few heads that owned multiple pairs of sneakers and wore them on a rotation. To be clear: there were dudes that showed up in the same shoes every day, and dudes that showed up in a rotation. This is still true to this day. For the heads and I, we’d talk shoes: comment, argue, covet, and sometimes discuss performance. These were real conversations that didn’t go much further than the basketball court. Basketball courts - in the late 90’s/early 2000’s - are where sneaker culture was incubated, for me.
In Northern California - Chris Webber was kind of a big deal - the kind of player that transcended basketball, locally, and became somewhat of a NorCal legend. Although not singlehandedly - he brought some ‘glory years’ to Sacramento Kings basketball. And people loved him for it. At the time, some would argue he was one of the top 5 players in the league, and they wouldn’t be wrong. He was big nationally and because of that, he carried a lot of clout regionally. Besides being the most recognizable face in the NCAA for the ‘Fab Five’ a few years prior, the NBA Rookie of the Year, and a 5-time All-Star, he was a formidable star for the Kings; And he dated Tyra Banks and had a bonafied rap album (remember this? I sure do.) He was seemingly everywhere for us Northern Californians.
So when Chris Webber showed up to the 2002 NBA All-Star game wearing a pair of shiny - almost glowing - silver sneakers, a lot of Northern (and Southern) Californian’s took notice. The word quickly spread: ‘Chrome CDubbz’ by ‘Dada Supreme’ - his sneaker sponsor - had now hit the mainstream. The shoe was like a figurative and literal magnet: people could not stop talking about it. It was all over ESPN and even casual fans would talk about those ‘silver sneakers’. At the time, sneakerhead or not, the term ‘CDubbz’ became commonplace. Dudes would show up to courts rockin ‘CDubbz’ and folks would just start talking about them. Asking how they held up, what comfort was like, jokes about how the sun shining against them could render defenders useless. It was legitimately fascinating to watch. My cousin had a pair and he swore by them.
Not for me, though, too loud.
But they had an absolute cultural moment. I’d like to argue that the moment was bigger than ‘Northern California’, but if I did I’d be lying - because there’s no way I could know. I know what the region I lived in was talking about because I lived in it.
For the uninitiated, NikeTalk was a very influential internet forum created by and for sneakerheads - it was an early form of ‘social media’, compared to the tools and platforms we have today. Essentially, upon completion of a painfully long account creation process (30+ days), one would create a ‘thread’ on the board in hopes that it would start a discussion about said topic. Around the time I was active on NikeTalk, I remember being fascinated that there were something like 400,000 different screen names/members in the NikeTalk directory - meaning there were way more ‘sneakerheads’ that I ever thought even existed. I often used this number as a reference point when meeting regular people that would tell me they’d never heard of sneakerheads.
Pointlessness aside, this is how a lot of us got our sneaker news: through NikeTalk threads. There were threads of different types of shoes - ‘retros’, ‘jordans’, ‘air maxes’, ‘other brands’, etc., plus threads on other things we were interested in: hip hop, clothing, semi-half-naked women.
The first time I discovered NikeTalk, in 2004, I utilized it to meet up with actual sneakerheads. In New York City. To help me orient myself around the place I now lived. It became an invaluable resource for myself because it helped me navigate a lot of things I wasn’t yet aware of…shop locations, releases, sizing info, etc. An absolute goldmine of information at the time.
I’d frequently look at the NYC board and the San Francisco boards, as I felt uniquely tied to both. While I was in NYC, I could keep up with sneaker culture in SF, and when I was back home in NorCal, I could keep up with sneaker culture in NYC. One thing I noticed - sneakers were regional.
While everyone - nationwide - was looking for SBs, I noticed that dudes in NYC favored Jordans and Foams, while SF had more of a predilection towards Air Maxes and Trainers.
Later on I found out why. It should always have been a given that styles someone was rockin’ in Philly didn’t exactly translate to styles someone was rockin’ in San Diego. And, although a lot of it had to do with basketball, a lot of it also had to do with regional dynamics: things like the climate, weather, infrastructure. Back then - this was accepted and pretty well known. I distinctly remember dudes like Wale talking about what Foams meant to the DC, Maryland & Virginia area. And dudes like Killer Mike talking about what AF1’s meant to Atlanta. And Mr. Cartoon talking about what Cortez’ meant to Los Angeles. The list goes on and on. Style has mostly always been regional.
But, then, the internet. When I left New York to come back to California, I felt like I was the only person on the West Coast that had on Foams…and I wore them ONLY because I was living in a snow-heavy area. I literally never saw a pair of Foams in San Francisco or Santa Cruz…definitely not on courts and not even in stores.
Until…the Galaxy Foams release…February 2012. Because…for some reason…this shoe was everywhere. And everyone everywhere had to have some Foams. For a good 3 years. I remember friends (non-sneakerheads) in New York calling me trying to secure Galaxy foams for me - and I DIDN’T EVEN ASK FOR THEM.
There were pictures of lines and memes and craiglist ads of people from all corners of the country trying to secure a pair of Foamposites.
Why?
Arguably, for me, the original galaxy Foamposite release could be referenced as the point that regional sneaker styles transitioned to a global monoculture…instead of everyone acting according to their region, they began acting towards the internet as the region. This is the point at which what we saw in person in the streets or on the court became less important than what we saw online.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Because that’s just how the world works.
A little while ago ago, a very popular and important sneaker account (important in the sense that it is MASSIVE) based in Atlanta told the internet that the Dada CDubbz was ‘never it.’ And I had to comment: ‘just because it wasn’t big in Atlanta doesn’t mean it wasn’t big elsewhere.’ We went back and forth for a bit, before a few others chimed in, defending my position. But the damage was already done - social media has been re-writing regional history for years.
I’m not mad. I’m amused. Because I like pointing out the nuances of things, this feels like a good place to land: the internet doesn’t remember the small details that I do, but it does remember the general arc of something.
So to claim that CDubbz were “never it,” the overall arc is mostly true. The only guy in the NBA - or pop culture, for that matter - who really pulled off CDubbz was C-Dubb himself. My cousin might’ve pulled them off for a season or two, but overall, they were a blip on the larger sneaker stage the internet now recognizes as the history of “sneaker culture.”
The thing is, before the internet - and social media specifically - started dictating our wants and desires, sneaker culture didn’t require consensus. It only required participation, in whatever form that took. My cousin wasn’t a sneakerhead by any means. But when he rocked those CDubbz, you better believe he felt like he was a part of it. And I celebrated with him for that. But he didn’t have to pass any tests to feel that way. Because that’s just the way it was.
If anything, that’s what I miss most about the pre-social media sneaker days: when you were into sneakers simply because you decided to be.
And that’s the long way around.