Sneakerhead culture has significantly grown since the 1980’s. As music and sports embraced sneakers, the industry’s influence on shaping the identity of its consumers has been visible. Whether it’s repping you’re hometown or your favorite sports team, sneakers have emerged as an visual way to express who you are. Russ Bengtson, sneaker writer and editor, spoke to Yellowbrick about how sneakerheads have found identity through sneakers.

Sneakerhead Locale

“There has always been a bit of a split between East Coast and West Coast when it comes to sneakers. I grew up on Long Island in New York,” says Bengtson. “There has always been a lot of overlap between the two coasts, but you had shoes like the Chuck Taylors and the Nike Cortez that really make an impact on the West Coast.”

“The East Coast — especially New York — is different because a lot of people don’t have cars. Instead, your sneakers would really be where your status would come from. Maybe in California, you would get away with other things because you had a car. Your car would be your status,” Bengtson continued. “In New York, your shoes are your status. In this area, you’re dealing with subways and crowded streets. You gain respect from making sure your shoes don’t get stepped on and making sure your shoes don’t get taken. This doesn’t happen as often as it used to, but it was something significant. Shoes were something you’d protect and place quite a bit of value on.”

Team Love

“Before we talk about people, we have to talk about basketball programs, team colors, certain athletes being on certain teams, and how those things affect sneaker culture,” says Bengtson. “You would want powder blue Uptowns (Nike Air Force 1’s) because North Carolina was crushing teams. This was before the golden era, when everybody was rocking the starter jacket and the jersey, before the Mitchell & Ness phenomenon,” he explains. “Going back to my childhood, it was about watching North Carolina and Duke, watching UCLA, wearing the powder blue and maize, or any other colorway. It was about Boston College, wearing the burgundy and mustard.”

Although individual endorsements weren’t popular during this time, it was standard practice for college teams to have endorsements deals. As a result, teams and brands were closely affiliated. “North Carolina had the weapons and all of the emerging styles under Converse. Georgetown had the Hoya Nikes — the midnight blue with the smoke gray,” recalls Bengtson. “With college basketball teams, you had the particular colors of their uniforms all the way to brand Jordan. All of a sudden, you had these college teams’ colors on everybody’s feet around the way.”

The Price of Being a Sneakerhead

“When sneakers would get popular, it wasn’t always just because of who was wearing them. In some cases, it would even be about how expensive they were,” Bengtson remembers. “You can look at something like the Adidas Forum, which didn’t have any player associated with it. Players wore it, but it wasn’t necessarily a signature model. However, people still wanted it because of how expensive it was.”

For sneakerheads, price and exclusivity adds to allure. “A lot of these brands that didn’t necessarily make a lot of noise in other spaces were able to have an impact because of the price tag and because of the status that the shoe gave you, says Bengtson. “When it really comes down to it, in a lot of places, the sneakers you wear are a lot more meaningful than just being a pair of shoes. They say a lot about what you value and what you identify with, and they have a real effect on the way other people view you.”

You can learn more about the history and future of the sneaker industry by exploring Yellowbrick’s Sneaker Essentials online course.

If you’re looking for a career in sneaker media, first and foremost, you have to know about sneakers. That might seem obvious. But there are many experienced, knowledgeable people in sneaker media nowadays. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, we will know pretty quickly, and you will not last. It’s that simple.

You need to be passionate about your sneaker education. This is not a field that you can just walk into without knowing what you’re talking about. Sneakers can be two different types of products. If you’re wearing them on the court, on the field, or for any athletic activity, they’re performance products. But if you’re not, they’re fashion products. You’ve got to look at it that way.

If you’re getting into the content business, you need to know how to write. You need to know how to speak. If you want to be on camera, you have to know how to hold yourself on camera. You have to know how to interview people. You need to know how to use a camera, edit, and set up a shoot.

It’s no different from any other content creation angle or subject. Any skill that you would get from a media curriculum at any reputable college or university will get you where you need to be. But in order to get over the hump, you have to know your sneakers, and that’s where online sneaker education comes in.

Sneaker media now is about a lot more than just writing about when the shoe is coming out and which stores will carry it. You have to figure out what people in the scene care about. You have to create video content that can kind of give your own spin on that shoe beyond the objective facts around how much it is and how limited it’s going to be.

Sneaker education, and particularly online sneaker education, have opened up the world of sneaker design and media to more people around the world than ever before. There are just so many more voices out there.

It’s also interesting because now, brands are kind of competing with sneaker media. When sneaker blogs first came about, brands and the sneaker industry in general hadn’t really figured out how to tell their own stories around shoes, so they had to rely on websites like Sneaker News or Complex to tell those stories for them.

Now, the brands have their own ways of telling these stories and are increasingly more interested in doing so because they can control those narratives and they can create them on their own terms. There’s a little bit of a push-and-pull now in that relationship because brands would rather tell the stories themselves in a lot of instances.

Sneaker media is something that evolved as a reaction to sneaker culture. I feel like you had people who were super interested in sneakers. You could see that in something as simple as basketball.

Not to make Michael Jordan an example of everything, but Air Jordan, to some people, was as big a deal as Michael Jordan himself. Regular media, whether it’s newspapers or even magazines, were sort of slow to pick up on that. You would maybe get a photo of a sneaker somewhere.

I believe it was in 1987 that Sports Illustrated wrote a little column next to a piece on Michael Jordan about the Air Jordan 2. That was a huge moment and something that I cut out. I think I still have it somewhere because it was a whole thing specifically on the shoe.

This is off-topic a little bit, but that was the attainable part of Michael Jordan’s sort of magic. It’s like you couldn’t literally be Michael Jordan, but you could wear the same shoes he did. To find something you could read about that shoe was really special back then.

This was even before Bobitto wrote his piece in The Source. That piece took this thing that a lot of people were interested in, and one person who knew a lot about it talked about it. That made a lot of people realize, “Hey, I’m not alone in this.” I think we all had friends we talked about sneakers with, but knowing it could be this thing was super important.

I remember when I was writing to SLAM to try and write for them. One of the reasons I wanted to is because I knew the first Air Jordan Retros were coming out in 1994 or 1995, probably because they were in a magazine. I forget who mentioned it. But I wanted to write about them somewhere, and SLAM seemed like the place I would be able to do that.

Sneaker media before that was a very service-oriented thing, whether it would be Consumer Reports talking about something or specifically running magazines. I think those magazines probably don’t get enough credit. Magazines like Runner’s World talk about running shoes, but as a tool. They’re not talking about it as if it’s cool because it has this visible airbag. It’s like, “No, we ran in this for 500 miles, and here’s what we liked about it, and here’s what we didn’t.”

Since then, obviously, it’s blown up everywhere. Bobbito did a sneaker show on ESPN. You had web-based sneaker shows even just in the Complex network, whether it’s Full Size Run or Joe La Puma doing Sneaker Shopping or DJ Clark Kent and me doing Quickstrike, which predated a lot of those things.

It was a matter of knowing an audience is out there and convincing someone to take the chance on you to serve that audience. I think that’s the most important part — the audience was there, and the interest was there. The audience just needed that product to serve them, and it grew up around them.

When you speak about the merge between sneakers and sports, there’s no greater influence than Michael Jordan. One of the most compelling issues revolving around Michael Jordan and sneakers was when the NBA banned his sneakers for having too much black on them in 1985. This was a story that really tapped into the heartstrings of urban sneaker consumers.

Questions were asked about the issues of the sneakers. What was wrong with the coloring of the sneakers? What rules were being violated by having a lot of black on the sneaker? The unbelievable answer was that there wasn’t any white on them.

The Racial Tensions Were High in New York for the Sneaker Industry

Now you have the perfect storm of events with a whole lot of tension behind a whole lot of racial situations. You have this symbolism of the best player in the NBA, at the time, being told that his shoes had too much black on them and that he would be fined if he continued to wear them. The emotion in this controversial issue created a great marketing story for sneaker consumers.

On September 15th, Nike created a revolutionary new basketball shoe. On October 18th, the NBA threw the shoes out of the game. Fortunately, the NBA can’t stop you from wearing Nike’s Air Jordans.

Michael Jordan Was the Greatest Influence on Sneakers in Sports

At the time and up until Michael Jordan ended his career of being the best basketball player in the world, a new-wave phenomenon of sneakers became insanely popular. So here you have, arguably, the most important athlete of all times. He did everything. From an athletic standpoint, there is still no better player in the game of basketball. Everyone wanted to be like Mike on the basketball court. But in his younger days, Mike was also very fashionable. He wore Nike sweatsuits and rocked gold chains.

Michael Jordan helped transcend sneakers, the sneaker culture, and sneakers as a fashion object. The sneakers were so beautiful that people wanted to wear them off the basketball court and into the streets. People were wearing Jordans a hell of a lot more in the streets than they were on the basketball court. So Michael Jordan was everything when it came to sneakers.

Michael Jordan hasn’t played a professional game of basketball in decades now, but Air Jordans are still the number one talked about sneakers. They are still the number one sneakers that people line up and camp outside for. Jordans aren’t really used for basketball anymore. They rarely were back in the day, but they are even less now. Jordans have become more of a fashion product these days.

Sneaker Culture Fueled by Celebrities on Social Media

Celebrities are a significant influence in the sneaker culture. You see a lot of the sneakers they are wearing, especially on their personal social media accounts. For example, you see Lebron James taking lots of photos of his shoes and posting them on his Instagram Stories. He posts a lot of pictures of his shoes, and you notice that he has better sneakers than everyone else does. It’s a place for him to show off his sneakers, but it’s also his cosign, and this marketing tactic works. Kids are going to see his posts and want his sneakers.

Nowadays, athletes who play sports aren’t as influential in footwear as they used to be. However, we are in a place now where people are more interested in what the athletes are wearing before the game than what they are wearing on the court. If Kevin Durant or Russell Westbrook wear a pair of Virgil Abloh Air Jordan 1s before the game, then that’s what everyone is going to notice. Fans and consumers may not be buying as many signature on-court sneakers anymore, but it’s those off-court moments that express their true personalities.

Every celebrity on social media these days feels like a sneakerhead. Sneakers make people feel good, whether they are rich or not. When you have new shoes, and that new shoe feeling, you kind of want to show them off to the world.

After learning about trademark law, copyright law, and patent law, another important part of sneaker education is learning about trade secrets. So what is a trade secret and how is it protected?

A trade secret is a business method, customer list, pattern, idea, or some other non-public piece of information that a company will go through great lengths to protect. Trade secrets are important because companies work tirelessly to develop independent ways of doing business and to create a special product or a process, and they need to protect these items. The information is used in business to create an opportunity to obtain an economic advantage over competitors that don’t have that information. A really famous example of a trade secret is the secret ingredients in Coca-Cola’s recipe.

How Do Trade Secrets Apply to the Sneaker Industry?

Companies like sneaker companies go to great lengths to protect their trade secrets. In 2014, trade secrets were a topic at the highest level when three former employees left Nike to join Adidas. These gentlemen left and allegedly took with them information relating to various aspects of the Nike brand, including their processes of making sneakers and other confidential information about marketing, promotion, and many things that we discuss in our book about the business side.

As soon as these three gentlemen announced that they were leaving Nike to join Adidas, Nike filed a lawsuit. In it, they alleged that these gentlemen were taking specific confidential information, otherwise known as trade secrets, and using it for their benefit and for the benefit of Adidas. In its complaint, Nike asked for damages of over $10 million, claiming that this information was extremely sensitive and highly valuable to their brand. The case ended up settling out of court. But eventually, these gentlemen made their way over to Adidas, soo it was worked out. But it just goes to show you the extreme lengths and costs that companies will go through to protect their trade secret information.

Because trade secrets are so sensitive, it’s hard to know which companies have what information. But companies spend a lot of money on research and development to create trade secrets and to gain an economic advantage over their competitors.

How Does a Company Protect Its Trade Secrets?

One method that companies use to protect their information is by having employees that come into the company sign NDAs. NDAs are “non-disclosure agreements,” and they protect exactly what trade secrets are, confidential information such as data, customer lists, processes, patterns, and other sensitive and highly valuable information. NDAs are useful. But they don’t always work because many employees leave, and they go and use the information elsewhere. Sometimes, it’s hard to prove that an employee has breached an NDA. So they’re used to create a chilling effect to make sure that employees know that there will be a liability if they disclose the information that they obtained through their relationship with the employer.

Another way that companies can protect their trade secrets is through restrictive covenants in their employment agreements. We’re not going to get into much detail on restrictive covenants in this module. But when an employee joins a company, the company will sometimes ask an employee to waive certain rights and to abide by certain restrictive covenants. So if an employee comes to a company and then leaves, they may be asked, for a certain period of time, to not work for a competitor, to not disclose confidential information about the company, and to not solicit other employees that have worked for the company. These are what are called restrictive covenants. They’re methods and tools that companies use to protect their trade secrets through employment agreements.

Another way that companies can protect their trade secrets is by filing a lawsuit. This is, obviously, the most final and nuclear option in the trade secret protection ladder, but this is sometimes the last and best option when sensitive trade secrets are at stake. A company can bring a lawsuit against an employee or another corporation that it believes has stolen their trade secrets, and through litigation, they can try to work out protecting that information, stopping the dissemination of the confidential information, and, in some cases, returning the confidential information and trade secrets back to the company.

Now that we’ve covered trade secrets, we’ve really gone through all of the main facets of intellectual property law. We’ve covered trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade secrets. After learning these basics of intellectual property, we can then move on to our next section, which is the law of sneakers and the more practical side of the business, which we call “The Art Of The Sneaker Deal.”

For the record, I cannot stand the term “sneakerhead” because I feel like it defines someone as only being into sneakers. In addition, the term tends to draw direct associations to negative terms like crackheads. I prefer to use words like sneaker aficionado or sneaker lover instead of sneakerhead. Although I love sneakers, I have never been addicted to them. I have never put sneakers above and beyond everything else.

The term “sneakerhead” has been adopted by large companies and the mainstream media. It’s also often used by people who aren’t super passionate about sneakers to describe others who are. It’s an easy phrase to describe someone that is really into sneakers.

Sneakers Bring People Together

Sharing a love for sneakers is a great way to create a bond between people, but it’s not the only thing that matters. There are many other aspects outside of sneakers that draw people together. The sneakers may be the initial common bond that can put people in a room together, but their conversations and other interests keep the bonds alive.

The term “sneakerhead” is fitting as a quick and easy definition of someone that loves shoes, but it does not explain the full meaning of the word. It’s not an accurate description of what really takes place among the people in the sneaker community. There’s also camaraderie, friendship, and kinship. There are stories being exchanged between sneaker lovers of all kinds. There’s an entire culture.

I have sneakers in my closet from countries all over the world. These are from countries I’ve never even visited. They were sent to me by friends that live there. Friends that I made while they were visiting the States. We bonded over our love of sneakers. This is an example of the global phenomenon and kinship that the word sneakerhead doesn’t fully encompass.

Sneaker Industry

There are so many different ways to describe what a sneakerhead is. I can think of at least three or four versions.

First, there are the Hypebeast Sneakerheads. These are the sneaker lovers that are out to buy the latest in everything. And they are buying these things because of the hype or the influences. Many of the influences come from musical artists. They are buying the next Yeezys because Kanye is wearing them or Pumas because Pharell is wearing them. They choose the sneakers they buy based on association, not on the design of the shoe.

Then you have the OG sneakerheads. These are the true shoe-collecting sneakerheads. They are the people buying the Stan Smiths, the never-worn first-edition Air Jordans, and the ripped-up 80s Jordans used for playing pickup basketball back in the day. These are the sneakerheads that appreciate the history of the brands like Pony. They want to be a part of that big-city culture in places like New York or LA.

Next, there are sneakerheads like me. I’m more interested in the design aspect of sneakers. This is partly because I am a designer myself. There are different aspects and elements that go into the design of a sneaker. I want to know how they can evolve, I want to know how to keep them relevant, and I want to know how to put new technology into them.

Finally, you have the new-age sneakerheads. These are the people that initiate the influences that shoes have on buyers. These are the kids that basically create the trends for everything. They are essentially hypebeasts without even realizing it.

Sneaker Culture

Ultimately, I think that a sneakerhead is just someone who really cares about footwear. They care about all things related to sneakers. They like the stories, the history, and the scene.
They want to know what’s happening and where it’s going.

I’m still not a huge fan of the word sneakerhead because it’s been so diluted by companies and people looking to make money off the term. It’s an easy shortcut to explain to people what you are into, but I don’t personally like to define myself that way. Sneakerhead typically refers to people who care about the stuff and want to spend their free time dedicated to it.

I work in sneakers, and I can’t really ever turn that off. On the weekends, I’m still thinking about sneakers or reading about sneakers. I’m still texting my friends about what sneakers are coming out, sneaker reviews, or how specific brands are being presented. So basically, being a sneakerhead is just this idea that’s always in the back of your head, and it frames the way you look at the world.

Before there were websites and social media channels dedicated to sneakers, you didn’t really see a lot of sneakers in the media. This made it harder to connect with them. Most of the sneaker ads that aired were celebrity-based, linking them to specific releases.

I remember seeing videos of certain shoes like the banned Air Jordan 1. When these sneakers were first released to the public, they were only carried by outlet stores. So naturally, this made them super coveted. Today, those same shoes could sell for thousands of dollars.

Sneaker Industry Chaos

There was this one sneaker video of an outlet store with a large drawn gate in front of it. It was early in the morning, and people were waiting outside of the gate to enter. No official line was formed yet because they had to wait for the gate to open before moving into the plaza area in front of the store. Eventually, security came and opened the gate. As soon as there was a gap underneath the gate, people were on the ground crawling under it.

So as this gate lifted, the crowd emerged from it, and people start sprinting to get to the storefront. They were running as fast as possible to get there and form an official line. This happens every time there is a massive Jordan sneaker release.

The new sneaker releases were always accompanied by these funny local television coverage pieces done by people who don’t actually know what’s going on. So they would fumble around, trying to figure it out as they went, and it rarely made sense.

Let me tell you a little bit about why these shoes are important to you. You see, they have the icy gum bottoms. Just lick them. They are limited editions. These shoes are never coming again.

I remember when the Galaxy Foams were released in Orlando in 2012. There were news teams covering the event with helicopters overhead and cops at the mall, shutting things down. It was pure chaos.

There have been a lot of fights at New York City sneaker stores that have gone viral. With so many people pushing and shoving each other over shoes, eventually, the cops are going to get involved, and the whole event will get shut down. In New York City, Supreme can’t release their Nike collaborations in the store anymore because of moments like these.

Social Media as a Marketing Tool

Meme culture has also contributed to big pop culture sneaker crossover moments. We all remember the Damn Daniel thing with the white vans sneakers.

Damn, Daniel. Damn, Daniel. Damn, Daniel. Back at it again with the white Vans.

The “Damn, Daniel” kid eventually became so popular that he received a free supply of Vans for life. It’s interesting to see how these top-name brands react to these moments. There is a lot of free marketing, and they have to figure out how to best take advantage of it. I remember when all of this was happening, and I emailed Vans to ask if they were doing something about this. They responded that they had a plan. Some people speculate that Vans planned this, themselves, as a marketing strategy. I don’t believe that, but some people do.

“A lot of people get copyright and trademarks mixed up,” says sneaker industry professional Kenneth Anand. What is a copyright? A copyright protects an original work of authorship. “Original works of authorship” can include, but are not limited to, architecture, graphics, pictures, sculptures, works of literature, or other types of artistic work.

Examples of Copyrights

Jay-Z would have a copyright on the lyrics that he writes for his songs. He would also have a copyright on the songs themselves, as they are fixed in MP3 or CD format. Artist Daniel Arcam would have a copyright over his paintings, unique Pokemon, and eroded DeLorean sculptures.

Writer George R. R. Martin would have a copyright over his books for “Game of Thrones” and the screenplay for the HBO TV series “Game of Thrones.” These are various examples of the types of copyrights that you can have.

Benefits of Copyrights

“One of the main goals of copyrights is to allow the inventor the ability to reap the benefits of creating the work,” Kenneth Anand explains. This means that whoever owns a copyright has the exclusive right to reproduce, publish, promote, and sell their works of art. In order to obtain a copyright, the work must be fixed in a tangible form. You cannot get a copyright for just an idea.

Obtaining a Copyright

In order to obtain a copyright, your work must follow three basic requirements. First, the work must be original, meaning it must be independently created rather than a copy of something else already existing. Second, it must be creative, meaning that there must be some minimum basis of creativity for the work. Finally, it has to be fixed. Copyrights cannot be ideas or things made up out of your imagination. Instead, they must be fixed in some tangible form. If a work has all three of these elements – original, creative, and fixed – you can obtain a copyright for it.

What types of works can you copyright? As said before, a copyright protects works of authorship, such as songs, books, videos, and other similar creations. You can even get a copyright for fabric patterns, jewelry designs, software, and architectural designs.

Copyrights in the Sneaker Industry

What do copyrights mean for sneakers? Are copyrights even applicable to sneakers? Typically, under US law, you cannot get a copyright for things that are useful articles, like hoodies, shoes, and/or pairs of pants. These are useful articles that are not copyrightable because they are not considered creative, unique, or original. However, there are some ways copyrights can be applied to sneakers.

Many sneaker companies are now turning to copyright law to protect their designs. How? First of all, designs on the side of a sneaker can only be copyrighted if they are separate and distinct from the useful article (the shoe) itself. Kenneth Anand’s former colleagues at adidas, for example, obtained a copyright application and protection for the design of the Yeezy 350 Boost.

“Well, they applied to the copyright review board. And they originally denied their application, because the copyright board said that the designs on the side of the Yeezy were not original, and were not separate from the useful article itself,” recalls Anand. “They were not satisfied with this so they appealed. And ultimately they were able to obtain a copyright application for the design of the 350 Boost, which is the stripe pattern that everybody knows and loves of the 350.”

It took many years and a lot of legal fighting, but Kenneth Anand’s colleagues managed to obtain a copyright. Today, more and more sneaker companies are turning to copyright applications for a cheap and easy way to protect the designs on the side of their sneakers, as long as the designs qualify as copyrightable works.

While sneaker companies are turning to copyright law to protect the patterns and designs on the side of their shoes, copyright law is traditionally used in the sneaker industry in many other ways. “For example, you can copyright your website, photos, or other promotional materials that you create, in relation to the sneakers themselves,” Kenneth Anand continues. “So copyright is useful in many ways to protect a sneakers brand and all of the collateral that goes around building that brand.”

An important thing to note about copyrights is that you must ensure your designs do not infringe on other people’s works. If you do not, you could find yourself in a lawsuit that could take years to resolve and can be quite costly.

Final Thoughts

Sneaker education expert Kenneth Anand highly recommends that you make sure anything that you are creating is original, creative, and fixed in a tangible form. If you meet those three requirements, you will be on your way to obtaining a copyright and protecting your own intellectual property.

This history of sneakers in film and videos really dates back to Spike Lee movies like “Do the Right Thing,” and “She’s Gotta Have It.” Lee helped bring sneaker culture to the forefront of film. There is one iconic scene in the movie “Do The Right Thing” where the character, Buggin Out, is wearing a pair of Air Jordan 4s. During this scene, his sneakers are run over by a passing bicyclist. This moment in the movie is, still to this day, one of the most powerful sneaker scenes in film history.

The famous movie scene not only displayed the Air Jordan 4 sneaker on the big screen, but it also exposed the idea of someone getting angry about their shoe getting scuffed. Afterward, Buggin went home and tried scrubbing out the scuff with a toothbrush. This is a very real feeling that all sneakerheads have felt. Spike Lee was able to bring this emotion to film because it was something he experienced himself.

This exposure led to Spike Lee, Nike, and Jordan forming a longer relationship. They worked together to develop stylized shoe commercials that resembled films. Their partnership was a starting point for sneakers in film and pop culture. After that, sneakers played a significant role in movies like “White Men Can’t Jump,” “Blue Chips,” and “Like Mike.”

If it weren’t for Spike Lee and his movie “Do The Right Thing,” we wouldn’t have the sneaker video content that we have today. Sneakers used to play more of a complementary role to performance, but nowadays, sneakers have become more of a main attraction. There is sneaker video content all over the web, on YouTube, and on Instagram.

Sneaker Industry

Sneakers have always been a big part of sports like basketball. However, these sneakers cater to a specific audience of people already predisposed to them. For example, any basketball fan that saw Michael Jordan wearing Air Jordans already knew about them, even if it was just peripherally.

In “Back to the Future,” Michael J Fox wore a pair of futuristic-looking Nike Macs that were almost the costar of the film. The shoes, and that particular part of the film, were both created by famous Nike designer Tinker Hatfield. This unique project was an excellent opportunity for a man who is creative on many levels to flex in an entirely different lane.

A Shift in Sneaker Culture

This shift in sneaker culture created an area in film and video where people would notice sneakers that they usually wouldn’t. Sneakers are often viewed as just a necessity. Just something that people have to buy their kids every year that often comes with a surprising price tag. But when you see something amazing like the Nike Mac in the movie “Back to the Future,” it raises awareness. Those shoes become so much more than just another piece of a school uniform.

Great Scott!

Sneakers like this have a cultural context to them. They represent this importance to another generation that people may not recognize. The futuristic sneakers designed for the movie “Back to the Future” became the future of shoes in reality when Nike created and sold the light-up, self-lacing shoes based on the film.

The cross-over commercial for Nike’s new Back to the Future-inspired sneakers launched in 2011. In the commercial, the shoe store employee shows the futuristic sneakers to the athlete customer. He’s talking about how the shoes light up when Doc shows up and asks if the sneakers are self-lacing. The employee tells him that they will be adding that feature in 2015.

Sneakers in Television

Popular television series like “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “Seinfeld: were iconic sitcoms, but they were so much more to sneakerheads. A true sneakerhead will never forget Will Smith, standing in the empty living room wearing his all-white Jordan 11s in the last episode of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” or the episode of Jerry Seinfeld when he put his feet up on the coffee table, revealing his Air Jordan 7s.

These were all vital moments in the sneaker culture, and they happened before the internet was a big thing. Now websites like Complex make lists of the best sneakers aired on hit TV shows, and sneaker brands tell stories around these pop culture moments.

On-court sneaker coverage in the NBA has definitely changed. In the ’90s with Michael Jordan, you had to wait and watch the game and see what they were wearing on TV and kind of squint and try to match what you saw in the sneaker store to what they were wearing on their feet. Now, we have 4K cameras and HD TVs. You can see every detail, and there are a lot more choices in terms of on-court basketball sneakers than there used to be.

There used to be four colors of Air Jordans every year. Now, there are eight colors of Air Jordans that come out a month. Now, there are websites and blogs that are just dedicated to what NBA players are wearing on court. I think it’s changed along with how technology and the internet has evolved. It’s just made everything a lot more accessible.

Building the business of sneaker media is a topic discussed in the sneaker education course.