He’s always wore sketchers. Like since he was 4. Recently, he got really emotionally taking about shoes he wanted for middle school. He said if he doesn’t get Nikes he’s going to get teased. Great fucking marketing work Nike.

  • @LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    2612 hours ago

    I don’t know if this is a bad idea, but recently all the Chinese manufacturers spoke out about how much the products they make actually cost, you can find the exact warehouse that makes them, and order directly from them, at a ridiculous mark down. Like a 10th of the price, or less. Might be worth some research. I see Adidas sambas for $10, including postage. They’re all there. They just don’t have the actual name label on them yet, because that’s all they do when they reach the distributor, though, so might be useless to you.

      • @LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        97 hours ago

        I was too lazy to actually go find the specific warehouses. I just downloaded taobao, it’s partially in English now. I’ve seen and saved a few tiktoks with descriptions of the locations and which places do which items / brands. I just genuinely don’t have time to deep dive and do proper research, though.

        • @Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          7
          edit-2
          5 hours ago

          Nah, you usually have to direct message them via WhatsApp. You will have to pay like 15 or 20 shipping, so people usually buy a few pairs at a time.

          There are specific marketplaces for things, but they tend to only sell bulk. Aliexpress is all resellers.

          I am not even sure if the ones I posted sell exact knock offs or not though.

  • @DancingBear@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    10
    edit-2
    12 hours ago

    Instead of getting him 300$ shoes give him the choice of the cool shoes or the latest coolest video game or the shoes, or whatever hobby he enjoys…

    Kids tease other kids because they themselves feel insecure… that’s literally all it is… if you need Nike shoes to feel secure you’re probably not a cool person anyways

    • @spoke0thedevil@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      52 hours ago

      The shoes are probably not $300…more like $100. And the kids goal is to not feel socially ostracized, not to spend money frivolously.

    • @LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      210 hours ago

      $300 shoes? I think the most expensive shoes I’ve ever bought were $70. I’m sure a lot of the issue with him getting picked on isn’t so much brand name but him feeling like he has no say in what he wears and feeling like he is dressed by his parents in styles he has no say in. Its been 25 years since I entered middle school like this kid, but back then I would have felt the same way if my parents were forcing me to wear something I didn’t like/want. It wasn’t about price either. Often times the shoes my parents wanted me to wear were the same or higher in price, but styles change over time and vary by region/groups. People have their own personalities and prefer to fit in if they can. If the kid doesn’t want to feel like a toddler and have more freedom in what they wear it isn’t a bad thing.

  • @5in1k@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    3518 hours ago

    Happened to me. Got Nikes, got teased because they were not a good enough model. Kids are monsters.

    • @dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      1113 hours ago

      Yup. Learned that one back in the 3rd grade. This stuff is hard if you’re not experienced enough to know how people work.

      On the upside, I learned that one cannot buy their way into other’s good graces, especially if they’re going to require you to modify your behavior to get there; they’re lying and that was never the issue. On the downside: holy shit that hurts once it goes wrong the first time.

      As an adult I can also appreciate that there are situations where you can “buy your way in” to a club or status of some sort. IMO, those situations are generally not worth it to begin with, requiring an never-ending stream of cash to keep up appearances. Plus, it surrounds you with other people that also believe, and are invested, in the program. It’s a recipe for elitism at best, and a big 'ol grift at worst. Better friends and relationships can be had for $0 everywhere else.

    • @laranis@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      1016 hours ago

      Yeah, he’s not getting made fun of for his shoes. They’re just a convenient target of ridicule. Son is about to learn a life lesson.

      I’m sorry. People are shit.

  • @BigTrout75@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    918 hours ago

    Well understood. His Mom was poor and bullied in school. So much so that she brings it up from time to time. She quickly bought him the shoes. I’m going to work on getting him Vans or Hookas in the future.

      • Cornpop
        link
        fedilink
        English
        21 hour ago

        Well he already fell for sketchers marketing lol. It’s all marketing apparently

    • @Kaput@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      65 hours ago

      Parenting is hard. She didn’t just by him bullying resistant shoes, She also bought herself a break from dealing with the guilt or fear of her son getting teased. And that’s perfectly fine in my opinion, choose your fight because life has lots of them. Offering your son other options in the future will be good too. These are not Nike they’re better.

    • @XeroxCool@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      615 hours ago

      Is he gonna smoke the kids in his Hokas or is he gonna smoke with the other kids behind the bleachers with his hookah?

    • AreaSIX
      link
      fedilink
      English
      53
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      Is that why Apple has got the US by the balls because people want to avoid the dreaded green bubble in iMessage? I’m not from the US so that might be me misunderstanding the situation, but I’ve been told that even many adults in the US view that as a valid reason to avoid anything that’s not an iphone, because of some social stigma attached to the green bubble.

      • @AA5B@lemmy.world
        cake
        link
        fedilink
        English
        522 hours ago

        As an American I’m still not convinced.

        Apple successfully sold themselves as a better choice, the “in”thing - to adults. Most adults I know have iPhones and the ones who don’t seem self-conscious about it. It might have partly to do with Android phones originally sold as the budget alternative. We’re the shallow ones.

        Kids can take their cues from adults: they see iPhones as the “better”, more desired choice. But also take it to the next level, with teasing and bullying.

        I find it hard to believe anyone cares about the color of text bubbles, especially since kids don’t use iMessage, despite all the media making that claim. It’s just an excuse, but the social stigma is real

      • @RedPostItNote@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -181 day ago

        You can call it social stigma but it’s really just that there’s more you can do when texting someone else with an apple phone. A lot of the time the same messaging has a totally different vibe than when both people are on iPhones. Things can be lost in context etc.

        • TheRealKuni
          link
          fedilink
          English
          1223 hours ago

          Some of that has disappeared with RCS support, fortunately.

          But yes, Apple successfully positioned their texting app as a rich formatted chat app when used between iPhone users, behaving more like WhatsApp or KakaoTalk or other chat apps than like traditional texting. But when messaging people without iPhones, it was just standard texting (worse, since they would degrade the quality of MMS images more than necessary, as I understand). To the uninformed, this seemed like everyone else were the ones lagging behind. “How could your phone be any good? Images you send are terrible. I can’t name chats that have you in it. If I react to your messages it spams the group chat.” Etc.

          Brilliant, but absolutely evil, move by Apple. Unfortunately it worked. The only reason I use an iPhone today is that years ago I got tired of being left out of conversations and media sharing by my family and my wife’s family, who all use iPhones. So when my OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren Edition died an early, watery death (rest in peace, king among phones) and nothing else really wowed me in the Android space at the time, I bit the bullet and went to the dark side. I enjoy the iPhone, but I’m still bitter about why I got it.

    • @VitoRobles@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      251 day ago

      When I was a kid, there was a phase where everyone was obsessed with red flannel. Went on for like 3 months.

      Imagine a pro dominantly black/Latino school in the hood where we’re all dressing up like Al Borland from Home Improvement.

    • @SphereofWreckening@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      131 day ago

      It’s both. Kids suck and can be clique-like over the dumbest things. But these corporations also realize the amount they can make when their brand is a “status symbol”, and they purposely market around that.

    • Maeve
      link
      fedilink
      221 hours ago

      Because they learn from their families, usually. I remember the uppercrust side of my family kicking dirt from a family member’s grave onto his second wife’s grave. So classy.

  • @NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    18
    edit-2
    21 hours ago

    At all the schools my kids went to… Nobody cares. The kids really don’t give a shit what other kids are wearing. In some ways it’s bizarre given that wasn’t the case when I was a kid. But in many ways it’s great. I rarely ever hear of bullying, kids just are themselves.

    Of course thats woke, because they actually speak to the kids and tell them to consider others and will not tolerate intolerance. So I expect schools like these are few and far between.

  • @GaMEChld@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    1121 hours ago

    Man I went to a very affluent school and no one gave a shit about what sneakers we had. Unless you had Heeley’s of course. ZOOM!

    • @Psythik@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      2
      edit-2
      14 hours ago

      It’s okay I always hated Sketchers too. They were the shoe that you buy if you want to get bullied. Guess that’s still true today.

      Well I’m in late 30s and high school was 20 years ago at this point, so I caved and finally bought a pair. Settled on their knockoff version of the Nike Flex and I couldn’t be more pleased. They’re just as comfortable as the real Flex, and 5x cheaper too. That said, part of me is still embarrassed to be wearing Sketchers. I wish the logo was easier to remove…

  • @rumba@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    591 day ago

    I got teased for my shoes. I got better shoes, I got teased for my jacket, I got a better jacket. So then they just made shit up to tease me about.

    I saw the fucker that bullied me relentlessly for all three years in middle school about 10 years later. He was pounding stakes in the ground setting up for a carnival. He stopped me in apologized which was kind of surprising. I gave him an absolutely hollow but convincing thanks and what about my day.

    I did a little light internet stalking, turns out he’s vocal that can’t keep a job, construction companies fire him for “no reason” and he’s now down to whatever local company will hire him for physical labor. The only truly sad part is he has multiple children with multiple women and will not own up to any of them.

    Though, I really suppose I owe a lot of who I am to the hell he put me through. Insults mean fuck all to me and I can ignore stress in a bad situation and make solid decisions.

    • @Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      11 hour ago

      The kid who bullied me relentlessly in middle school had an extremely unique name. I’ve been following his career since as he’s been listed in news articles for being arrested for increasingly severe crimes, most recently being described as the kingpin of a car theft ring. Glad to know he’s been quite successful in his career so far with credentials like that!

    • TheRealKuni
      link
      fedilink
      English
      623 hours ago

      My grade school bully is serving life in prison for attempted double homicide. IIRC he’s also a sex offender.

      Obviously the decisions he made as an adult are his responsibility, but honestly I feel bad for him. He didn’t have much of a chance. His home life was terrible, and he took it out on those around him. He had no positive role models in his daily life besides those at his school, who were always punishing him because he couldn’t conform to a world utterly foreign to his own where people weren’t constantly shitty to one another, and the school didn’t have any better idea how to handle him. The kid had no support. His father was in and out of jail/prison, his mother was overwhelmed. He fell through the cracks.

      It’s no surprise he turned out a piece of shit.

      That doesn’t excuse his actions. Plenty of people come from difficult origins and are good people leading decent lives.

      But I do pity him.

  • @AA5B@lemmy.world
    cake
    link
    fedilink
    English
    1222 hours ago

    The specific request is kind of interesting - when I was a kid, everyone had to wear Nikes or get teased. However for my kids, Nikes were always out.

    Fads always come in cycles

  • Maeve
    link
    fedilink
    821 hours ago

    Is this still happening? It was happening 45 years ago, ffs.

  • @dan1101@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    231 day ago

    I went through the same Nike crisis when I was in middle school. Had to have them because my friends had them. Instead I got to joke about my “genuine imitation Nikes” from Kmart.

    It’s painful for kids that want to fit in because because they don’t have the wider and wiser perspective that most of us do as adults.