The re-release of the Air Jordan sneakers and the chaos across the country last week on people stampeding to buy them is baffling to me. Of course spending $180 on a pair of sneakers is equally baffling to me as well. Sorry, I just don't get it.
But these incidents of fighting, stabbings, gunfire, and arrests over a pair of shoes did remind me of something I've always wondered about. Working in a mall setting can be interesting at times, especially a mall with a lot of shoe stores. The store I work in is sandwiched between two shoe stores and a shoe store across from us so I see a lot of shoe shoppers.
The one thing that baffles me is young African-American males and their shoe fetish, so to speak. They buy a lot of sneakers. It's not uncommon to see them leaving a store with several pairs of sneakers at a time. Many of them will sit on a bench in front of our store after purchasing new sneakers, remove what appears to be new sneakers from their feet, then proceed to debate which pair of new shoes they just purchased are worthy of wearing out of the mall. It's equally baffling and comical to me to watch this process. They seem to take this process very seriously though.
I assume sneakers are some type of status symbol. One I don't understand, especially since the shoes they came into the mall wearing look fine to me and not in need of replacement.
I dunno.
Maybe young white guys have a fetish of some sort I just haven't noticed. It doesn't appear to be sneakers though. Perhaps it's video games?
Or....
Maybe I'm just getting old and it's just something I'm not ever going to understand. Just seems like such a waste of money to me.
5 comments:
This whole sneaker madness thing started ages ago, back when I was in high school (late 80's). I remember playfully drawing a happy face on the SOLE of a classmate's sneaker while he was sitting with his feet propped up on a chair, and he was FURIOUS with me for "ruining" his sneakers. Oh, and by the way, the cool kids call them "kicks". Or at least they did a couple of years ago. I may be totally out of date already, again.
There are SO many things flying around in my head right now, but I'm going to keep them there, rather than putting them here, for fear of offending some of your readers. Suffice it to say, after over 15 years of working in the roughest ghetto in Chicago, I have more than a few opinions/thoughts on this subject!
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your beautiful granddaughter. Happy New Year to you, my friend.
I would never pay that much for a shoe. I hate to wear shoes. I adore flip flops. kids are weird. :)
I wonder what percentage of the shoe and "sportswear" industry is financed by drug money? Probably a startling amount.
I no longer get kids either. Must be getting old! The whole sneaker thing has totally passed me by. I love me a nice pair of shoes, but, if I can't run in them, sneakers are no good to me.
Post a Comment