As a young Mr. Orlopp, growing up in what might be charitably described as sub-middle class housing, I did not have access to any higher-end shoes. While I was always fascinated with shoes, I used to wear what were called Bobos. This term was a euphemism for the cheapest type of shoe you could buy. (They even had a jingle that went "Bobos they make your feet feel fine! Bobos they cost a dollar ninety-nine!"). As you well know from years of experience in the American educational system, certain kids will often taunt you for your cheap footwear.
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| Picture from nwlocalpaper.com/ghost-of-business-past-lens-sportswear |
The odd thing is, I have fond memories of so-called Bobos that I really enjoyed. I had a pair of shoes called Kangaroos, which I thought were exceedingly cool because they had a little pouch in them (like a kangaroo, get it?) and my grandmother's from Australia so I felt like it related to my Aussie roots. In high school, I had a pair of Ewings, which were not very popular shoes but they were put out by one of my favorite Knicks of all time Patrick Ewing. Since my friends were all shorter than me, I often played center in our pick-up games, and having the signature shoes of the best center in the league seemed like a major flex to me. I also ran track and cross-country so I had a variety of different running shoes that I was into, including a pair of a Saucony back in roughly 1985 or so.
Once I started teaching I mainly wore dress shoes. When I reached what I consider to be "old age" at 35, I started wearing a pair of Vans with my dress pants to maintain my youthful edge. That started me on the path to buying different shoes to go with my different fits and I would buy the majority of them at DSW. I would buy whatever was on sale that looked dope; usually a cool pair of sneakers but in a colorway that no one really bought. I found them on the discount rack for like 40 bucks.
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| Stan Smiths make the fit. |
This went on for years until one day in class one of my enterprising students asked me a question that shifted my thinking. He asked: "Instead of buying a bunch of different cheap sneakers why don't you take that money and buy like one expensive pair?" That started me on the path to where I am today.
That year I bought two pairs of Game of Thrones sneakers (the White Walkers and the House Targaryen Ultra boosts) and a pair of Kyrie SpongeBob Patricks. What I didn't know when I started buying pricey shoes is that I wouldn't buy two or three pairs and be done. Like many drugs, buying shoes became addictive rapidly, so once I had those shoes I wanted other shoes. I quickly realized that I did not have the money to be this level of sneakerhead. That's when I got into reselling sneakers.
I would join a raffle and if I got lucky enough to win I would go ahead and sell those for a profit and use that to buy shoes that I actually wanted. Then the pandemic hit and I was locked inside, sinking into quarantine depression. I started diving deep into Sneaker Twitter and buying all sorts of shoes and selling shoes until things started to spiral out of control. I now own roughly 40 to 50 pairs of shoes. I've been trying to scale back of late and I want to just sell off most of my inventory and then walk away from the sneaker game for a while because honestly, it's sort of depressing. Unless you have bots most of these draws and drops are impossible to get and you just end up taking an insane amount of Ls. It turned something that was a fun hobby into another thing in my life causing me stress and heartache.
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| Restock alert from @SOLELINKS |
My plan is to find my set rotation of twelve to twenty shoes, sell off the rest, and just enjoy wearing the ones I own. I'm an OG Sneakerhead who lost his way, but fortunately, I know how to get back home. I'm going to do that after I try to win those Jordan 1 Shadow 2.0 shoes this Saturday. Then I'm done, I swear.
#bobos4life
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