Growing up, my brother had every pair of Jordan’s imaginable. The entire collection we now consider “retro” sat in our closet in a trunk full of swoosh boxes.

These days he’s a semi-retired collector, opting not to compete in the raffles with bots, and re-sellers and only making appearances for special releases – like the Kobe Grinch’s (I’m still upset I didn’t get those smh)

I’ll forever blame shoe bots when I lose sneaker raffles, but the thing about sneaker culture as it exists today is that neither the raffles nor the re-sellers would exist without my brother’s generation; The OG sneaker-heads, who didn’t have raffles or apps to buy. For his generation, when it was time for a shoe to drop

They lined up at the mall FOR HOURS

Odds were that if you got to the mall even an hour past 10am on Saturday, you missed the shoe release, and unless you had a sneaker connect working at Foot Locker, you were out of luck.

This was the cadence for years going well into my high school years. However, the releases were so limited that they often led to violent stampedes. As a result, (and because of the public outrage) Nike invented the SNKRS app to cut down on sneaker release pandemonium (check it out below, it was wild)

SOUNDS GREAT… BUT HOW DID WE GET HERE?

This might all sound interesting, but it makes you wonder:

What led to the birth of the re-sell market? What about all of these groups dedicated to trading sneakers online? Where did start from? And why are kids paying $10,000 for bots to beat everyone at sneaker drops?

The answer is simple. It started with my brother’s generation in the early 2000s in a Nike-run internet forum called

NIKETALK.

On December 10,1999, a programmer named Nelson Cabral created an online forum for sneaker-heads.

If you remember 1999, then you know that the internet was sh*tty. Gen Z has no idea about the pain of dial up, or what it was like using “Ask Jeeves”.

On top of that, there wasn’t really a place where you could make true friends online. Chat rooms? Sketchy af. AOL? Ehh kinda. But that was for people you already know. Message boards? In theory, they were a perfect middle ground between the chat rooms & AOL but they were all kinda boring.

NikeTalk was different.

It was the first message board where sneakerheads from across the world could get together and discuss their favorite shoes, coordinate on IRL meetups, trade with other members, etc. And before Facebook groups and bots were ever thought of, this is how people kept up to date with shoe releases.

NikeTalk was immensely important in shaping modern sneaker culture from a cultural and product perspective. It wasn’t just a place for sneakerheads to hang out. It shaped Nike as a company.

Nike employees would lurk the forum for product reactions and other types of insights that could help them curate the brand. Hell, they even launched new products based on feedback from the forum, and some people got jobs with Nike off of the strength of being a NikeTalk member.

But that’s not all.

NIKETALK BIRTHED COMMUNITIES

Members would join NikeTalk, make friends and join crews. Some of the more famous crews included the Air Mack$ Crew, where members like Methamphibian (yes, you read that correctly) were even given their own colorways in collaboration with Nike. The shoes even sold on Sotheby’s for a pretty penny. Check it out below:

NIKETALK WASN’T JUST ABOUT SNEAKERS THOUGH… IT WAS ABOUT LIFE.

The amazing thing about the NikeTalk forum if you ask OG members is that it wasn’t just a place for discussing colorways or new shoe rumors. it was a place where all cultural conversations would take place too.

Seriously. You could go on NikeTalk and discuss anything.

You could refresh your page and never know what conversation would pop up. It was community at its finest. NikeTalk had pages dedicated to sports, gym, etc. And they even had conversation threads dedicate to showing off your outfit for. the day. And… they of course had threads dedicated to hip-hop.

Wale, for example, was one of a few rappers who’d test his music on the forums while trying to get his foot in the door as a musician, and ironically the record that led to his break through is entitled “Nike Boots”.

And while rappers like Wale were making their presence known in hip-hop OG members of the NikeTalk community wanted to take their forum conversations to the next level and start blogs dedicated to all things hip-hop fashion.

CAREERS STARTED ON NIKETALK

Another part of this story is that people’s affinity for sneakers led to them becoming figures in larger cultural conversations including music & street wear.

John Gottay, for example, a well-respected member of the NikeTalk community went on to start The Smoking Section – a blog many of us hip-hop fans remember fondly for premiering new releases from some of today’s top artists during their “come up”.

Gotty does work with Nike to this very day. He most recently appeared on their SNKRS Live event “Heating Up” to talk about the release of the new “chlorophyll” trainers from Nike.

Another prolific member named Ben Baller (of the Air Mack$ Crew) has since become a prominent jeweler in the hiphop community and creates custom pieces for some of your (and my) favorite rappers.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Sneaker culture wouldn’t exist today if it wasn’t for NikeTalk. An early 2000s chat room started by a young dude in Canada looking for others to share his sneaker fandom with turned into a sprawling community of live events, re-sellers, and careers that continue to evolve daily.

While sneaker culture today looks different in some ways, the community aspect is as strong as ever. And honestly, it’s fun to be a part of. My collection is light right now, but it’s growing.

To this day, NikeTalk still runs, and according to Complex, Cabral is one of the most influential people in sneaker culture history – ranked at 50. Many of his supporters think he deserves a higher slot and I agree.

Nevertheless…

Some new Nike’s are coming out this weekend (a collaboration with Tom Sachs). I’ll let you know if I snag them.

Peace.