It is 5 a.m. on a Saturday. Outside of Nike Town, a sneaker store, tents are sprawled out across the sidewalk, tired teens slouch barely awake in cheap lawn chairs, and fast food wrappers litter the ground. While not everyone would find this an appealing Saturday morning, for those known as “sneakerheads,” this situation has its benefits.
The term “sneakerhead” has many meanings. It can refer to those with a simple love for sneakers, or those who avidly resell shoes, making thousands of dollars with each outing.
Senior Amir Grice, who has been interested in shoes for several years, said he has watched the word evolve to become more about making money than anything else.
“I think the word sneakerhead has definitely changed,” Grice said. “When I first started I called myself a sneakerhead because I knew everything about shoes. But a real sneakerhead is someone who has a real emotional attachment to the shoes. Many of these new sneakerheads are mainly in this for reselling; they’re really not sneakerheads in the end. For that reason I personally don’t call myself a sneakerhead; I just say I’m a guy who likes shoes.”
According to Grice, branding is a large part of the appeal of certain sneakers. He said that people who look up to icons such as basketball player Michael Jordan often buy his shoes so they can “Be Like Mike.”
Sophomore Matthew Haig, a fervid reseller of sneakers, said that people often follow trends started by celebrities such as rapper and media icon Kanye West. According to Haig, people who buy shoes just to copy a celebrity or replicate a current style are called “hype beasts.”
“It’s often used as a joke, but a ‘hype beast’ is someone who only buys shoes because they’re popular, which means a lot of the time following whatever Kanye is wearing,” Haig said. “If Kanye’s wearing a shoe and someone buys them right away, they don’t actually like the shoe, they just like it because Kanye is wearing it.”
Haig says he sells a lot of shoes through Facebook and eBay and that there are worldwide groups on Facebook where one can sell their shoes through PayPal.
Aside from online reselling, there are large sneaker conventions that occur regularly in Boston.
“In the Boston area there’s definitely a large amount of sneakerheads,” freshman Felix Smith said. “There’s sneaker conventions; they all get together, and buy and sell and trade. That’s a really good place to meet other people.”
According to Smith, he has camped out outside of a store before, though he has never stayed overnight.
He said that one of the ways to resell shoes for the highest amount is putting them online the day they’re released.
“I would go to Nike Town at maybe 7:30 or 8, I would buy the shoes and then go inside somewhere and take a picture of them,” Smith said. “Then I’d put them right up on Facebook for the highest you can sell them for.”
Haig said that he runs a large operation, and pays people to camp for him so that he can increase the number of shoes he gets, which results in a greater yield in the end. While Haig doesn’t often make connections through conventions, he said that being a loyal customer to certain stores can result in discounts or shoes being saved for him, which he then sells again.
“Business networks through conventions aren’t very important because people there don’t have as much impact in the actual community; they’re more just buying sneakers to wear, so it’s good for finding customers,” Haig said. “But there are other ways to find people who work at the stores which can actually help you. Sometimes it’s luck, sometimes you spend a lot of money at a store and they approach you.”
According to Haig, the time commitment can be hard, though it is manageable. He spends lots of time on the phone with customers overseas at night due to the difference in time zones. Grice has also allocated more time than he would have liked to sneakers, losing sleep and even missing school on one occasion just to get a new pair of shoes.
“When I was younger I used to have to commute as far as Holbrook to do a trade. I didn’t even know where that was until talking to a kid and realizing it was an hour or two away. I know one kid who skipped his SATs for the Yeezy 2 release,” Grice said. “If a release was happening on a Saturday for example, I also know kids wouldn’t come to school Thursday or Friday just for the opportunity to get them. You pick and choose how much time you want to spend; it can be really time consuming.”
Jake Brodsky can be contacted at [email protected]
