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.

Years ago, there was a website called Dress Like Kanye West. It was run by a guy who actually ended up working at Complex, who now works at Adidas—a very smart guy. But these kinds of sites were popping up because Kanye’s influence at the time was so crazy that everybody wanted to know what he was wearing.

Now, Upscale Hype is a website that’s basically devoted to breaking down people’s outfits. Now Complex does a lot of this kind of thing. When these brands started doing it, that’s around the time we started seeing the shift in people wanting to act cool and act like they don’t pay attention to what celebrities are wearing. But it isn’t true. Everybody pays attention.

Back then, Kanye was at the forefront of having a whole website devoted to what he was wearing, breaking down his outfit. If he was overseas, and he wore some obscure new clothes, people were trying to find out what they were. In a way, this paved the way for how sneaker culture has developed since then.

Whether it’s on Instagram or another social media medium, it’s about being first to post that a certain person was wearing these sneakers. Or that this person just debuted these. Or LeBron James just wore these. And now you can even see it through the tunnels in NBA and NFL games. There is such an appetite now for big stars and athletes to walk through the tunnel and see what they’re wearing, and then it immediately goes online.

And these aren’t even just sneaker blogs that are posting this stuff. It’s also sports blogs posting it. These days, you get the sense that everyone knows that the cameras are watching. Everyone is taking a more deliberate approach to fashion and being seen, and brands are working with celebrities and athletes to make sure that the debut of a shoe that everyone’s waiting for is spectacular and happens in the biggest way possible.

In the past, there wasn’t as much content to see what celebrities were wearing, especially on their feet, and not broken down the way it is now. And because that has changed, everything has changed. I know that at Complex, for example, everyone is always rushing when someone debuts something new to get a post up on Instagram because it helps to build the hype machine and help build up steam for those releases.

These newer things like the celebrity co-signs, celebrities being photographed all the time, and celebrities deliberately working with brands to debut sneakers for big events have really changed sneaker media and the way that it operates.

To learn more about how the sneaker industry and media are evolving and growing, consider exploring the world of online sneaker education. If you’ve been looking for an affordable and accessible means to achieve a sneaker education, it can serve as an amazing option.

When it comes to sneaker media, it’s basically just like any other media except that it’s specialized to a sneaker audience in the same way that Auto Trader, for example, is for car buffs or Sports Illustrated is for sports buffs. Sneaker media is for sneakerheads. The only real difference is that sneaker media is still fairly new.

There are a lot of different types of sneaker media. For example, there are actual print magazines, like Sole Collector had for about 10 years, or Slam Kicks. So these are actual print, in-your-hand stories about sneakers and upcoming sneakers that you might want to buy. There are internet blogs, like Sole Collector, Complex Sneakers, Nice Kicks, or Sneaker News, for example. These blogs are kind of the same thing only they’re online-based and a little bit more daily—a little bit more immediate.

Then, there is social media. This could be an Instagram account that you follow for release info, or it could be sort of like a specialized, curated social media platform dedicated to one kind of genre in sneakers. As an example, there are Instagram handles that are solely dedicated to Air Jordans, and there’s nothing else they post on there except Air Jordans.

Sneaker media has really changed with how media itself has been evolving. If you think about it, when was the last time you bought a newspaper? These days, we live in a digital society. We have a smart computer in our pockets practically 24/7, essentially. It’s a lot more fast-paced, and people want their news more immediately, to their phones or laptops, as opposed to waiting for the next season to get their Eastbay, or Kicks, or Sole Collector magazine.

Nowadays, sneaker media is literally any platform you could distribute sneaker-related content on. Anyone can sign up for a free Twitter account. Anyone can sign up for a free Instagram account. Anyone can get a Gmail address and be on YouTube overnight. Back in the day when I first started publishing videos on YouTube, I was using tapes—actual video tapes. These days, you could shoot 4K slow-motion on your iPhone 10.

With that being said, once the barriers to entry come down, you’re going to get content that’s a lot worse overall. If we’re being honest, this is just because you don’t really have to know much or have much to get into it. That being said, though, if you’re really good, and really knowledgeable, and really passionate about what you do, then you can rise above the clutter that exists at the bottom level. If you have an iPhone and you have a social media account, you’re in the game. So to stand out, you really have to be making quality content.

Exploring online sneaker education is a fantastic way to attain all of the knowledge and experience that a sneaker education offers. It requires nothing more than an internet connection and an interest in the subject matter, so consider trying it out.

Sneaker YouTube is a growing genre where there are several different types of videos and content that are being made. You have higher-end productions like Complex’s “Sneaker Shopping With Joe La Puma,” where he takes celebrity guests to sneaker stores and then interviews them, sees what they purchase, and gets their thoughts on sneakers.

You also have debate shows like the one I’m involved with on Sole Collector called “Full Sized Run.” And you also have a lot of independent creators out there making their own vlog-style content who aren’t attached to any media company. The video might be going through their day, they might have a new pick up they want to show, they may have their thoughts on some sort of sneaker content, or they might even have beef with another sneaker YouTuber. And it’s always usually first-person style following them around the city if they’re on tour if they’re going to a Sneaker Con event, or just what’s going on in their life.

And people really get attached to these personalities. You have guys like Qias Omar, who has a lot of vlogs. You have someone like Jacques Slade, who’s known for his unboxing videos. It’s a true unboxing where he takes boxes and cracks them open right on camera, and you find out what’s there. They don’t let you know in the title what their shoes are, so you get the feeling of suspense.

If you’re in the know about footwear, you probably have a feel for what’s in that box. But for a lot of kids, they get excited. Unboxing videos are huge on YouTube right now. You have people unboxing Disney characters that have tens of millions of views. It may seem like pretty silly content, but there really is some excitement around seeing the unknown and having it revealed in front of you.

We do the unboxing videos. We do the decor content. But we’re also trying to figure out ways to look at things through a different lens. One way is through our game show on Facebook called “Price the Hype,” where we took the format of a similar show on TV (which I won’t name) and injected sneakers into it.

We make up these mini-games where we force a person to actually pretend to buy their shoes with an app we built and then take a photo of their shoes to do a real quick flex. If they do that, they win a challenge. If they don’t win the challenge, maybe we pour chocolate syrup on the $1,000 pair of sneakers that they were trying to get!

There are also some debate and opinion style shows like “Full Size Run” or “Quickstrike,” where it takes on an ESPN “Around the Horn” feel. There are people with opposite views on the same sneaker or sneaker-related topic, and they debate.

Indie Media Creators Hold Brands Accountable

A lot of people accuse sneaker media of being too safe in terms of their relationships with brands and with stores and them being afraid to call people out. We created the show so we could do just that. And some of the people at the brands aren’t happy about it, but we’re glad that we get to speak our voice.

A lot of sneaker media is very objective, and it’s just giving you the straight facts about what’s happening, what’s releasing, how did this release go down, things like that. We’re there to give our own opinions, tell you why we think this shoe was a garbage fire, why we think this shoe is better than other people realize, why this designer messed up, things like that.

There’s a couple of reasons why you need to remain authentic in sneaker media. One is that the brands really need you more than you need them. You’re here to serve the community, not necessarily the brands. I think a lot of people let that slip and don’t realize to what extent they need to be honest with people about exactly what happened. And I understand because it’s a difficult relationship to maintain. If you’re going to tell people how Adidas messed this thing up and you’ve got a contact at Adidas, it makes them look bad. But you’ve got to tell the truth.

Also, you have to think about your authenticity when a brand approaches you with some type of partnership. Maybe you’ve got enough of a social following for them to want you to take a little bit of money to post something on your Instagram.

The first question is, do you actually like that thing? Is that a shoe you would actually wear? The second thing is, is it going to alienate your audience or your followers if you’re on there shilling with a hashtag ad post about how much you like this shoe? I’ve taken money to post things on my Instagram before. I got plenty of hate for it, but it was a shoe I actually liked, and I felt comfortable with it.

Can Social Media Make Money for Creators?

There’s a lot of different ways to get paid off of social media. There’s traditional ad revenue where you’re getting a cut of the ads from YouTube. Influencers might be offered sponsorships where a brand might come in and offer them a nice check to exclusively wear a certain brand in their videos. And there’s a traditional corporate sense, which I fall into, where the company gets the ad revenue, and you get a salary. When I started out as a freelance writer, I was getting paid per story. It may start out as a passion project, but there are different ways to actually pay your bills through sneaker media.

There’s also vlogging, which is a popular format in sneaker media. Take examples like Money Kicks, who is a 16-year-old kid who just happens to have billionaire parents and wild exotic animals at home. You know, he documents how he lives his life. And it could be Fat Joe and Khaled coming by his place to meet his monkey or his lion! Another one that we use at Complex is called “Life at Complex,” where it’s Tony. It’s just his day-to-day life or just things that go on at the Complex office. One aspect is opening the mail that we get from our viewers. We get a lot of really cool promotional packages from a lot of different companies, and not just from sneaker brands.

So, there’s a lot of different formats. There might be one that doesn’t even exist yet. I think the most important part is knowing that there’s going to be an audience for something and doing something that you know will give a unique point of view on footwear that hasn’t been seen before. There are a lot of ways to get into sneaker media. You don’t just have to be a blogger or a YouTuber, which is what most people first think of when they think of sneaker education. You can just run a really good curated Instagram or Snapchat account.

One example that comes to mind is Corgishoe. He’s built a following based on just buying sneakers on clearance and then storing them for years before he sells them on his Instagram. And people will find him, and they’ll say, I remember these. I forgot these existed. He’ll resell them on his Instagram and then delete the photo right after. It’s all about finding a niche or finding a way that is, one, relevant to you and that an audience is looking for.

Our show “Full Sized Run” all started off as a Facebook Live broadcast every week before it got to YouTube and before we had sponsorship money. You look at DJ Khaled’s Jordan partnership. I feel like that started off when he was a real pioneer in using Snapchat first and cultivating an audience.

There are also these super-niche audiences. One guy that comes to mind is Brad Hall. His unboxings are kind of a mix of dry humor and comedy and an actual unique point of view on products. He’s not really taking himself too seriously. The quality of it is almost something that could be seen on Comedy Central. That’s just one example of how you can have a super targeted audience outside of just the Complex’s and the Sole Collectors and the Sneaker News and the Nice Kicks talk.

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.

I would say that to some degree, sneakers have always been aspirational. Stan Smith would be wearing a pair of tennis shoes, and you might think, wow, I could get the same pair of shoes as the guy who won Wimbledon. Then there’s also Eric Jordan being its own thing. But if you look at a show like MTV Cribs, that kind of brought it all together.

Before MTV Cribs, you would see a celebrity in whatever his or her role was, whether it be a rapper, or actor, or athlete, and you’d see bits and pieces of it. Maybe you would know what car they drove, or you’d see a picture of their house, but that show kind of brought everything together. Suddenly it was like, you would see the same person who owned a Rolls Royce or Ferrari, and a huge pool, and a 600-bedroom house with an entire closet dedicated to their sneakers.

That was the first time you really got to see inside a rapper or celebrity’s sneaker closet. Or, if you’re a sneaker-head, you probably remember the rapper Fat Joe opening up his crates of white Blanco Y Blanco Air Force Ones and licking the soles of them. And then there were just these moments when they’d go into the closets of celebrities, you would know who was really into shoes and who wasn’t.

Probably the biggest one was Fat Joe licking the bottom of his sneakers, which a lot of people then imitated to a degree. Hopefully, they didn’t lick their shoes for real, because as someone who’s been around plenty of pairs of new and old sneakers, I would not recommend it, as they definitely don’t taste very good.

Overall, though, it gave it all context. It showed you how important shoes were in relation to a lot of other things in their lives. Maybe someone didn’t have a t-shirt closet or a video game closet, but they would have a sneaker closet. They would have a room dedicated to their shoes. Maybe your parents didn’t quite get it but seeing that could have been something that helped clue them in. They could see that even if their kids made millions of dollars someday, they would still love sneakers.

If you have an interest in learning more about the sneaker industry or media, give online sneaker education a try. If you have an interest in a sneaker education, there’s no reason why you can’t get started learning right away.

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.