You cannot talk about the popularity of sneakers without acknowledging their origins as part of the hip hop culture. Since the birth of hip hop in the 70s, sneakers have been the official footwear for the global phenomenon.

Sneakers Represent a Movement

Hip hop and its related elements were all about anti-establishment, youthful expression, and creativity. So it was only natural that sneakers represented that movement when you think about all the places you couldn’t go wearing them. They weren’t allowed in 70s clubs, churches, or restaurants. You couldn’t show up to work wearing sneakers or get married in them.

Sneakers were a marginalizing piece of footwear, but they created a stereotype of what kind of person you were. If you wore sneakers all the time, folks didn’t view you as living up to your full potential in becoming what you aspired to be.

Hip Hop Represented its Own Rules

In the hip hop culture, sneakers were part of the experience of expressing yourself through things like B-boying, graffiti, DJing, and MCing. This experience transformed into the rules that governed being a true hip hop person.

Furthermore, there were rules of originality that manifested through sneakers. These abiding rules still apply today. If my friend and I showed up somewhere wearing the same sneakers, we would have to find a way to make them look different. We would change the laces, use bleach, or spray paint stripes on them. These different methods were being used to ensure that we abided by the original hip hop rules. In the quest to make sure that we lived up to those rules came the birth of customized sneakers. These were created as a basic bonafide everyday way to honor the rules of hip hop. You can never disassociate what sneakers are today from the origins of the hip hop culture.

Run-DMC Recognition

In the early 80s, record labels were signing more hip hop artists, which led to more visibility and served as a reflection and representation of inner-city life. This was a pivotable moment for sneakers.

During the Raising Hell Tour at Madison Square Garden in 1986, Run-DMC performed their song called “My Adidas.” This song was a response to another song called “Fell Into Sneakers,” which was a disparaging song about people who wear sneakers. The lyrics sang about “felony cases committed by brothers with phat shoelaces.”

During Run-DMC’s live performance of “My Adidas,” they requested that concert-goers take their Adidas sneakers off and put them in the air. Some of those attendees were Adidas executives. Thousands of fans in the arena waved their shoes in the air.

The Adidas executives instantly saw the influence that the urban community had on trending and branding long before those words even existed. They saw how powerful the urban community could be when they got behind a particular product.

Shortly after that performance, Adidas gave Run-DMC an endorsement deal. This was huge because it was the first non-athletic endorsement deal by a global sportswear brand, let alone a sneaker company.

This endorsement spoke to the fact that Run-DMC were great ambassadors for what was already happening in the urban communities. Especially in New York, where they represented being from Queens. It also showed that no matter where their worldwide fame and stardom took them, the urban and hip hop aesthetic and rules went with them.

Laces Tied to the Hip Hop Culture

When it comes to sneaker education, you’ll learn that a lot of it is based on making the most of the little that you have. I came from a time when it wasn’t about having the most expensive or most colorful sneakers. It was just about being fresh, which meant that everything you had on was washed and clean. So when you live in a neighborhood where everyone has Bobos, you want to rock my Bobos fresher than everyone else.

For me, it started with the lacing styles. It wasn’t about having the most fly shoes. I was rocking hand-me-downs from my older cousins. We came from pretty humble beginnings, so we were just trying to have fun and be fresh at the same time. At the time, canvas sneakers and light suede basketball sneakers were the most popular. Chuck Taylors, City Brocades, Puma Clydes, and 69ers were more affordable options.

Shells were the opportunity of the day because they were on the higher end of affordable for the people in the hood at the time. But it wasn’t really about how much the sneakers cost; it was about being fresh and staying fresh. I knew dudes that would get a pair of kicks at the beginning of seventh grade, and the same sneakers would still be crispy at the top of eighth grade using just some dishwashing soap and a soft toothbrush.

Sneaker Industry

I think most people think that sneaker culture is primarily an American thing, but it’s spread throughout the world in different ways.

Europe

European sneaker culture evolved to a huge degree during the ’80s and ’90s because they had Adidas. Adidas was huge then, and it remains huge now. Europe also had Terrace culture, soccer stadiums, and football stadiums. People would stand, watching sports matches, wearing general Adidas sneakers. You could almost call them sports shoes. They are made for training. They are made for anything.

Adidas has been turning out sneakers for years. In America, you’d be hard-pressed to tell which year or era a sneaker came from because they all looked very similar. In addition, many new shoes have been reintroduced as retro models. However, Adidas in Europe have more significant distinctions between them, so people who grew up with a specific model have more memory connections with that particular design.

Japan

I think the sneaker culture in Japan took a lot of inspiration from the American market and then hit it back to us. It’s almost like we served it to them before they returned it back to us with a whole lot of backspin on it.

Take a look at resale shops in New York or LA. such as Stadium Goods, Flight Club, or Rif LA. The iconic way that the sneakers are presented — shrinkwrapped on the shelves — is something that came over from Japan.

All of this came from a time when it seemed like Japan almost valued American culture more than we did. I remember a time when people in America were selling Air Jordans to people in Japan because they would pay top dollar for them. I’ve heard stories about people clearing out thrift stores of brands like Nike and Levis then selling them to people in Japan to make a profit. This was during a time when Japan cherished these things more than we did.

The Shift

The exchange with Japan eventually turned back around on America though. Japan started getting limited-edition things that America now wanted. Nike CO-JP program made shoes specifically for the Japanese shoe market. They got their own Dunks, Air Force Ones, and Colorways. These were marketed only in Japan, making them even more coveted here in America.

What started with Japanese consumers desperately wanting things from America turned into products being explicitly made for the Japanese market, then ended with American consumers desperately wanting products from Japan. There are still shoes to this day that are hard to find and highly coveted in America.

Export Sneaker Culture

During your online sneaker education, it’s important to take a look at new sneaker markets that are trying to open. Furthermore, study Nike or Adidas as they expand their markets in America. You’ll see that it’s difficult to expand a market like that at such a high level. Are they able to get American consumers who already own 100 pairs of shoes that they don’t know what to do with to buy even more? Maybe it’s better to open a Chinese or Indian market with billions of potential new consumers. Perhaps it’s better to try and export sneaker culture again and get it going somewhere else in their own way.

One popular trend in sneaker culture right now is unboxing videos. And the best unboxing videos are the ones that are the most creative, whether it be camera angles or the suspense of what’s going to be shown, or if it’s just that the product is such an amazing one that people need to see it. Those are a few of the things that make a good unboxing video. However, what also makes a good unboxing video is a good host. Someone who can interject humor into their own personality in a way that adds to the product. When the host is able to do that, it gives you a real reason to want to watch it.

For the most part, people are unboxing all of the same stuff. One of the biggest criticisms about sneaker media in general is that oftentimes, the hosts aren’t as informed as maybe they should be. They don’t necessarily take the time to do the research before getting on camera, but they’re still making statements without really knowing what they’re talking about.

So, if you’re going to make an unboxing video, or any type of sneaker YouTube video, you should go into it with an informed opinion, and probably already have an idea of the things that you’re going to say. Or, at least talk about a subject that you feel confident giving factual information about. This is a good idea because if you’re going to have potentially hundreds of thousands of people watching it, you don’t want to be giving them the wrong info.

There are thousands of sneaker-related Instagram and Twitter accounts out there that you can follow. But which ones are actually worth spending your time on? Well, it kind of depends what it is that you’re looking for. The brand accounts are kind of obvious because they’re going to end up in your feed regardless. Usually, it’s best to look for the accounts that can give you something you aren’t seeing elsewhere.

There are a lot of good resellers to follow. There are guys like @solestreetsneakerco in New York who sometimes have some good information before the official accounts really do. Vintage sellers are also worth following too because they show you a lot of history that you don’t necessarily see on regular sneaker websites. A couple of these are Gusto in Japan or Doggsfoot. They come out with posts showing crazy pairs that you totally forgot about, or didn’t even know existed.

Leaker accounts are also good to follow because they’ll show you what’s coming out way ahead of time. Some of these accounts, like @pinoe77 can help give you an idea of what’s going on behind the scenes in the sneaker industry.

Hashtags are important because they’re a fun way to talk to others in the sneaker community and create little moments around what people are discussing. We use them a lot on our show “Full Size Run,” just to reference moments that we’ve talked about before or reference the hashtag “team early.” That’s the hashtag that someone might post on Twitter or Instagram when they want to show off about getting a new pair of sneakers a couple of weeks ahead of time.

These are just a few of the ways that people in the sneaker industry and community use social media to interact and share information. And it’s great to see how the advancement of technology can really help grow these kinds of communities.

Online sneaker education allows you to learn more about how the sneaker industry and community have changed and evolved, and it’s the perfect way to get your sneaker education with nothing more than an internet connection.

The internet has become the ultimate equalizer for everyone to respectfully look the same. At the start of hip-hop culture, however, originality was a major rule. For example, if you showed up wearing a pair of shoes that no one else had, you’d get the question, “Where’d you get those?” — which also happens to be the title of a book by Bobbito Garcia.

That phrase was important to the hip-hop experience because originality is a serious law and rule to live by. If someone asked you where you got your shoes, you were not going to tell them. They just had to wait to see what you came up with next. You had to go and hunt for yourself if you wanted something that somebody else had.

The Sneaker Industry: Then vs. Now

These days, you don’t speak only about technology and how the internet has made it the ultimate equalizer, where anyone can get anything they see, anywhere, at any time — especially with e-commerce platforms. Now, you also have a new business model where certain companies are publicly traded on the stock market. When you have shareholders of sneaker companies that are publicly traded on the stock market, they want to see activity that is going to lead to a return on investment.

This means that sneaker companies cannot just mysteriously drop sneakers, place them on a wall, then report some numbers a few months later. The shareholder wants full communication on what’s happening. So, now you have release dates. You have all these different things that go into sharing the news about the latest product.

Now when this product releases, not only do the shareholders and others who care about the ROI know, but the sneaker lovers also know. That’s because everything is now on a 24/7 news cycle of full reporting, giving you release dates, colorways, and the stores where the new sneaker is going to be sold.

This new way of doing things has totally shattered that rule of originality that folks like myself lived by for so long. So, in the early 2000s, with the popularity of sneakers, you had people starting to create their own websites, discussion groups, and forums online discussing their love of the shoes. Since this was uncharted territory, you had certain chat rooms and discussion forums online where there was a lot of common ground.

The Start of the Online Sneaker Education Movement

People shared an interest in talking about certain brands of sneakers. This led to a sort of flea market behind the scenes, where people would buy, sell, and trade them. People would report their thoughts about certain shoes and stories connected to them. This tightly tied into that whole sneaker community vibe.

The sneaker media really expanded when sneaker companies began to put money behind some of these companies to give them seeded product. This means they were getting product for free, which leaned them toward reporting more about one brand over another.

For example, when you’re a person like me — with 29 brands of sneakers in my closet — you looked at the sneaker media online, and after a while, in those media outlets and forums, you started only seeing reports, praise, and coverage for maybe two or three brands. This influence was not lost on the sportswear and sneaker companies themselves.

Quality Sneaker Education Is Hard To Come By

These manufacturers knew that they had to get in on the ground floor of gaining influence with the sneaker journalists. Some companies operated with little or no influence, so they remained purely impartial. Those companies were the ones that were actually able to give the consumer a real take on the good versus the bad — that this shoe does what it says it’s going to do, while that one makes claims it really can’t live up to — while addressing price, quality, and things like that.

Now, there really isn’t a lot of neutrality in reporting because of the corporate influence on the sneaker journalist. So, because their sites are now owned by major corporations, a lot of sneaker journalists have to march to a corporate policy and watch what they say about certain sneaker companies because there are ad dollars at stake.

There are business deals at stake. There are still some companies that will give you a true consumer reporting experience about the sneaker and its related products. But as a whole, the sneaker media outlets have become tainted over time.

Improving the Sneaker Industry

I think the entire industry needs to operate with a little more impartiality and honesty. There are still outlets out there that can give you that. You’ll have a true picture of what the product is that’s representing the industry these days.

I think internet culture has been super important to the way sneaker culture has grown and changed. In the earliest days, you had message boards like NikeTalk. You had the earliest version of the SLAM website, which was updated maybe once a day. It is really funny to think about how it would get just one update a day that included all the new information.

Now everything changes all the time. I think on one hand, it’s easier than ever to keep up and be on that leading edge. You’re going to get your push notifications not only from the actual sneaker companies through the SNKRS app or Adidas CONFIRMED app, but you’re probably also going to get pushes from Complex, Highsnobiety, and SLAM — often about the same exact show, probably with a very similar story.

I mean, look, we all have jobs to do. I think we do them well. At some point, a sneaker is a sneaker, and whatever you read about is going to tell you pretty much the same thing. So as much as all of us are editors, writers, and whatever else, you kind of have to be your own editor of this stuff. Maybe I’m shooting myself in the foot here, but you don’t have to follow everybody who talks about sneakers because you’re going to hear a lot of the same things from them all.

Finding Legit Online Sneaker Education

If you’re getting overwhelmed by the information, photos, or whatever else, you can can adjust that. You know the funny thing is that, in the earliest days of the sneaker internet, there wasn’t enough. Everyone was asking, “Who’s the plug?”, “Who’s giving us the best information?”, “Where can I find the photo of this sample Air Jordan that’s floating around?”, and “Where can I find a better photo of it?”

In many cases, the answer was nowhere because you would have a shot of a shoe on a conference table that someone smuggled out of headquarters, and that was all. Now there’s almost too much. Nike or adidas will do their promo push on a shoe. Minutes or seconds later, everyone in the sneaker internet, whether a publication or a person, will push out that same information.

So, it might seem like a flood, but it’s a flood of the same things. If you cut it down to specifically what the product is, there’s probably a lot less out there than you think. It’s just a matter of finding the right places to get it.

The good thing is there are a lot of answers to that. There is no wrong place to get it, unless you’re looking at sites selling fakes, which I don’t really advise. For legit info, feel free to pick amongst all of us. Pick amongst everyone. Find the one that suits you best, and you really can’t go wrong.

When it comes to trying to get into any industry, I believe that the biggest thing is to pay it forward. With the sneaker industry, I’m not going to sugarcoat it—you aren’t going to get in and immediately start making a six-figure income with your first job. However, you can learn from people who will help you to eventually make six figures in this industry if you’re passionate about sneakers. With the right determination and approach, you could literally will yourself into getting a job.

The good thing for people who are going to participate in sneaker education now is that the industry is a lot different than it used to be. When I was around, it was very cut and dry. Sneaker media wasn’t even what it is today. Nowadays, there are so many different aspects of it. I remember thinking of a marketing job as being stuffy and having to wear a suit. Now, though, when you’re in one of those jobs, you’re marketing the next Lebron shoe. Or you’re marketing the next Yeezy.

The industry has grown so much that now there are so many different jobs that you would previously have thought of as only corporate jobs but have now been created by sneakers. I’m not going to say that it’s an easy business to get into, but I will say that there are a lot more opportunities in the industry. In the present day, there are many more jobs available to get into the sneaker space than there were back when I was first starting out. You just have to know how to work your way in.

For anyone interested in finding their way into the sneaker industry, online sneaker education is an excellent starting point.

Personally, I’ve never done an unboxing. But the content, in terms of unboxings in the sneaker industry, that I really like to consume are people whose voice I really trust. Authenticity is really important when it comes to unboxing. You have WearTesters.com. You also have Nightwing, who really puts sneakers to the test, and he’s very unbiased. If it works for this, if it doesn’t work for this, he’s going to tell you.

In such a crowded space of unboxing, you really need to separate yourself through authenticity. There are tons of shoes that come through the Complex office nonstop. If we were giving the same amount of attention and the same amount of review time and not really pulling at the idiosyncrasies of what makes this sneaker better than the other or this sneaker better than the one we’ve reviewed last week, then no one’s really to take you seriously.

When I think “authenticity,” I think a straight review of who, what, where, when, and why, but also what this is best for and what this is not best for in terms of a sneaker. That’s going to reign supreme and is currently really separating people when it comes to unboxing on YouTube. But consistency is the thing that makes you stand apart, and basically, the audience taking your word as legitimate. That’s part of your online sneaker education right there.

You also must refrain from ever faking an audience. And always remember to be true to your fans. It’s a big deal. So, you could have the sneaker unboxing. Reviewing sneakers can be a really crowded area, but some people are doing it right. Consistency is key. And it may sound cliché, but your word is your bond when it comes to standing out in a space that’s already severely crowded.

If I were doing YouTube unboxings, I would always look for a different angle. If the review thing is not my thing, maybe it’s something about how these look with this style of jeans. Or I would get into putting an outfit together with these sneakers and then establish some sort of rating system.

But whatever it was, consistency and something that’s a little different than what’s happening in the unboxing space. It gives you a great opportunity to stand out. But really, your voice, your consistency, and how much your audience trusts your word reigns supreme when it comes to stuff like this.

Even with something as simple as an unboxing video, there are a lot of different factors you have to consider. How many other people already have these shoes at the moment that I’m unboxing them? How fast can I turn this video around? Can I be the first one on YouTube who has these shoes? Because if I wait too long to edit it, there are already 20 other people who got sent the shoes from the brand, and I’m not really adding anything new. Just a bit of sneaker education to pay attention to here: you’ve gotta be able to bring something new to the table.

As far as adding things that are new, you have to have your own perspective, your own voice, because just showing the product is not going to set yourself aside enough. If people care about who you are and they care about your opinions, then they’re going to be willing to listen to what you think about these shoes. Now, people don’t necessarily give their actual opinions in these videos because they might be scared of offending the brands or the person who sent in the sneakers gratis.

But that’s a different story. Basically, you have to present these things in a way that’s unique. You can’t just show the product. In my opinion, in unboxing videos, the product is the star. That’s kind of different from a lot of these sneaker YouTube videos, where the person is the star. In unboxings, it is all about the sneaker, too, so you have to make sure you have gratuitous sneaker-porn type shots in there.

You have to show the shoes. The shoes have to look good. If the lighting isn’t on point, if the shoe is out of focus, you’ve just got to start over. In making an unboxing video, the first thing I want to think about is, “What’s coming out soon that people really care about?” In any given week, there are a lot of shoes hitting retailers, and most of them aren’t going to be worth your time to create content around.

What’s the biggest show releasing that week? What’s the limited collaboration that there’s not a lot of content around just yet? The second question is, “Can I get that shoe? Who can I rely on to get that shoe?” A lot of times, the person at the brand may have samples. They may be able to send you a pair. But they might not be able to get you a pair quick enough.

Do I know a person at a retailer who can help out with that? Do I know a reseller who might have an early pair who’s willing to lend me them so I can shoot a video with them and maybe even send some business their way? Even if you don’t have access to a brand-new shoe that’s coming out, there’s still a lot to talk about with shoes that have been out or shoes that came out before the advent of a lot of this stuff.

Even if you think about the SEO aspect, what are people searching for? What’s the shoe that came out 20 years ago that there might not be a lot of information about it online? Can I make a video about that that will populate in Google search results? And people will come, and watch the video, and learn more about the shoes, learn more about me, maybe even subscribe to my YouTube channel.

What are the holes in that space that I can fill in that aren’t necessarily about new shoes, or what’s coming out next week, or what’s coming out two months from now? After that, it’s figuring out what exactly we want to tell about this shoe in a short time span. Two to three minutes is usually a good time to shoot for.

How much information can we get in there? How much is too much? And then also, we kind of try and make it a little bit funny because we feel like the whole unboxing thing, a lot of people might take it too seriously. So, we try to give people a reason to come back, and hopefully my brilliant humor shines through in that.

I think the best way to cultivate an audience is to think about your brand. It’s kind of corny at this point, but I think you really do kind of think, “What are the things I care about?” or “ What’s my point of view, and how can I show that to people?”

Ask yourself, “What specific sneakers am I into? What brands am I obsessed with? Which ones do I not care about so much?” Be honest with yourself. Ask, “Which ones do I go to only for those looks?” If you’re not an Adidas guy, people are going to know that it’s not that authentic if a pair of Adidas sneakers show up on your feed and you’re talking about how obsessed you are with them. People on the internet remember things. If you didn’t like this shoe two weeks ago and now you love it, they’re going to call you out on it. And they’re going to want to know why.

I think it’s really important to just think about the things that you’re putting out there. Once you figure that out, you can decide how and when you want to put it out there. At that point, you can also decide who you want to interact with to get into different people’s feeds and hopefully make people pay attention to the things you have to say – things that are of value and what stories you want to tell.

The Ultimate Online Sneaker Education

It’s extremely important to have a website to have your work and portfolio housed within a digital space where people can easily access and look into who you are and what you do.

In terms of social media, there’s obviously a way to brand yourself. As creatives, we tell stories visually. We engage visually, so Instagram is like a dream come true for everyone and maybe even having a Facebook gallery or Twitter page is beneficial.

What Are Different Ways That We Can Craft That Story?

The storytelling process and the presentation itself is a form of art. With the boom of social media, I’ve been able to just build my own separate brand, ironically, with just the pictures that I post. I actually didn’t even know that I had an eye for photography or for real imagery until I started using social media. That was a fun exercise for me to better understand cropping, imagery, and lighting. I had to figure out how to keep information entertaining and discover different ways to capture and retell a story that’s been told over and over again.

I have multiple classes that I teach and occasional in-person workshops about different ways that we can brand ourselves. Someone who’s a jewelry designer, or a florist, or someone who’s a sneaker designer will all need to find ways to tell stories. But how can we do it in a way that’s engaging, interesting, and that’s worth telling? There’s enough content in the world, so what can we do and offer that’s actually different and special?

Using Social Media to Dive Into the Sneaker Industry

The best way to maintain, grow, and connect with your audience is through social media. I think social media is an extremely powerful platform that, when utilized correctly, can open up a lot of doors and can take you to places that you would have never dreamed that you could have gone otherwise.

The most important part of social media is that it’s social. It’s a two-way street. It’s a conversation that you’re trying to have with people. It’s a community that you’re trying to build.

I think a lot of people fall short in their social media strategy by trying to make it too much of a one-way street – too much of, “I’m talking at you and not talking with you.” You want to create a conversation with people.

To start, you have to figure out what your angle or approach is to the content. If your content is primarily video-based, obviously, you go straight to YouTube. But you also have to leverage Twitter and Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, and all other social platforms to kind of funnel people back to your hub, which in this case would be YouTube.

If you’re going for more of a still image approach, obviously that is Instagram. That would be more of where you’re taking stylized pictures of sneakers that you picked up and your outfits – the things you would see on Instagram.

If you’re looking to do written words, especially now that Twitter has increased their character count to 280 and let you thread things up, you’ve got to go to Twitter. In that case, what you would be doing is posting maybe one or two images of sneakers but then providing some detailed text along with it.

With that being said, in order to really have a full approach to sneaker content in 2018, you basically have to have all of them. But what you should do, because it’s impossible–especially if you’re one person–to give 100% to all the platforms, is choose one that is going to be your main platform. Give most of your energy to that and then use the other platforms as complementary pieces to drive people to your main platform.

I think for me, when I look at social media or media as a whole, it might be best to have different accounts. You have a Twitter account. You have an Instagram account. You may have a YouTube account. You may write for a website. You might write for Medium or something like that.

If you’re continually updating all these things, you’re going to see which ones you’re getting the biggest reaction out of. That’s just natural. Some of these sneakerhead guys are really good at Instagram, but they’re not really good at Twitter. They’re two different platforms. You have to just try them out and see what you’re going to be best at. And chances are, you’re probably going to be better at one than the other.

You should also follow a variety of people. You can follow someone who just came into the game, but they are making a name for themselves. In contrast, you shouldn’t balance that with people who have been into this for a very long time and have a proven track record of producing good content, knowing what they’re talking about, and having good connections.

If you’re serious about getting a career or starting a career in the sneaker industry, you have to balance them both. You have to know what the 13-year-old kid is doing on YouTube but also maybe the 30-plus-year-old man who’s been doing this for 20 years. This way, you will get a nice, full scope of the culture and of the community.

My direct line of content is YouTube. That is the largest community of sneaker-related videos in the world. So from YouTube, I am able to get 12- and 13-year-old kids who are doing vlogs and showing what they copped from Supreme, the Yeezys they unbox, and so on and so forth.

I’m also able to get the people who are doing a bit more deep dives into the background and details of a sneaker, to people who give you your release dates and your info, and to people like us at Sole Collector who are doing different things. Where we’re giving you a sneaker-related game show, which is more of a scripted platform rather than a “vloggy,” social media-type thing. And following the right people on both platforms is very important to shaping your editorial perspective.