Hype has always fascinated me for the same reason why most things that fascinate me fascinate me. I just don’t understand it. Why one item, idea, person, band gets tons of hype while other seemingly equal alternatives never take off is foreign to me. It has a je ne se que that intrigues me. The best explanation I have found is in a book called The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, but it just left me with more questions.

There is this pair of shoes that I really like called the Nike Dunk. It is the basketball shoe that put Nike on the map in the ’80’s and nowadays comes in all sorts of forms, high-tops and low-tops in nearly any color scheme imaginable.
You can even design custom ones at NikeId. The most popular ones by far are the SB (skateboarding) line. below are a few examples of SB’s.

These shoes have become the epitomy of hype. Nike gets everyone from artists to famous skateboarders to famous skateboard shops to design them and then releases certain ones in limited quantities (some as few as 500, or so I’ve heard). People literally campout for days to get these shoes on the day they come out. In some cases, Nike doesn’t even tell shops when they are going to get the shoes. A shipment just shows up one day.

For the rarer ones, people pay up to $2000 on the aftermarket. There are discussion forums, tons of ebay listings, a magazine, and even a store dedicated to these shoes. It is starting to pay off big for Nike now. Mall shops are starting to carry more and more dunks. I haven’t seen any numbers or anything, but I would suspect that sales on all dunks have at least doubled or tripled because of the hype they’ve created with the limited edition versions. All because people want to have what others don’t have
So maybe it’s just plain ole human desire for exclusivity that causes hype.

Categories: General