- 7,322
- 28,706
- Joined
- Dec 8, 1999
In the illustrious words of Fred G. Sanford, "this is the big one." A decade ago, on December 10th, 1999, NikeTalk officially opened to the public.
It seems fitting, in a way, that we celebrate a decade of NikeTalk just a few short weeks after Michael Jordan's induction to basketball's hall offame. After all, isn't following in MJ's footprints (or replicas of the shoes he used to leave them) what NikeTalk is all about?
I told all my friends I'd just come up here, say 'thank you,' and walk off. I can't. There're too many people I need to thank. In all theposts you've seen - you didn't just see me. You saw Nelson C. You know that we began with a team of four admins and, at best, a couple dozen users. Youknow the reason the site is black, red, and white - because of our respect for Michael Jordan.
Most of you also know why we began.
You know that Nelson C and I, disgusted by the racism, hate, and chaos on the most popular sneaker forums at the time, vowed to create something better. Thatstarted a fire within us, a drive to build and maintain a community that felt like a true home for those with whom we share common interests.
As we went along, people added wood to that fire. We encountered more than our share of doubters starting out. Nelson even asked a number of people, wellthought of within the online sneaker enthusiast community at that time, to join us as part of the staff prior to launching the site. They turned him down. Theysaid, "others have tried something similar and failed." They said, "people will never stop going to NikePark. At best, you'll just playsecond fiddle." Some even went as far as to maintain - even years afterward - that NikeTalk's success had little to do with its people and everythingto do with fortuitous timing. Every single year, without fail, someone swears that NikeTalk has fallen off, that we're in decline. Many people, from theoutside looking in, fail to distinguish NT from its industry-shilling siblings. They consider us little more than a monument to shallow consumerism andconspicuous consumption.
The following people are jerks:
Er…
With all due respect to his Airness, let's not go that route. No more logs, no more flame wars. Let's be positive.
**Disclaimer: This will, I'm afraid, be long. If you don't want to read it - don't. It's not meant for you. If you must: postyour clichés, post your little .gifs, and keep it moving. This is only intended for those who actually care. **
In all seriousness, to use an old NikeTalk cliché, "it's not that serious." It is, admittedly, difficult at times to take a sneaker themedwebsite seriously. I can't sit here and compose a "state of the union" address or an acceptance speech with a straight face. That's what somehave been anticipating - but it wouldn't be honest.
That said, I know this occasion is one that many of you have sincerely been looking forward to and there are indeed a great many people who deserve my thanksindividually and our thanks collectively. All I can do is speak from the heart. It's just a social website. It's entertainment. It's fun. It'snot, however, without purpose.
NikeTalk emerged from friendship. It exists because of a friendship forged online between strangers gathered within a common space due to a shared interest.That is both the 'how' and the 'why' of NikeTalk. It exists because of the friendships we've made, because of the friendships we'dhoped to make, and because of the friendships we hoped YOU would make.
For laying the foundation, I have to acknowledge - there's no way around it - all the OGs from the late 90's. Among them, I have to thank, first andforemost, Nelson C. I have to thank JumpmanSt. These guys, I hope, will remain my lifelong friends. Growing up in the 80's, before the advent of theworldwide web, it seemed so improbable for anyone where I grew up to make friends with someone from the opposite coast, let alone the opposite side of theCanadian border, sight unseen. Many of our younger members take this for granted. Don't.
In the late '90's there was no one central location for sneaker fans. Everyone, it felt like, had their own homepage, their own unique contribution tomake. 23JumpmanSt, Greg's Nike World, NikePark, The Al Bundy Shoe Society, Jersey Joe's Joint, Nikeville, Pat's Air Jordan page, HypeSite, andNikeitis - to name but a few - made this little corner of the web worth returning to each day. All of them began, originally, purely for the love of the game.They weren't in it for the money because there was no money in it to be gained - at least at first. NikeTalk springs from that ethos. Their operators,people like C Soldia, Joe Galvan, Jersey Joe, Pat, Greg, and Nikeville all visited the forums and chat rooms and, eventually, they would all gather onNikeTalk. Some would join us as staff members.
We all give to NikeTalk. We share stories. We share information. We share laughs. We all do so voluntarily and most of us do so strictly for fun. For some,though, what they give to NikeTalk could rightly be called work. They don't just volunteer their time, their wit, their patience, or their expertise - theyvolunteer their labor. We all owe each and every person who's ever served on NikeTalk's staff our gratitude for allowing us to come this far, to keepour vision of a safe, friendly, respectful community alive:
I wish I could offer individual praise for each one of you, but it would be less than you rightly deserve and we all know that this post will be greetedprimarily with moving gifs and unoriginal responses like "wall of text," "cool story bro," and the oh-so-timely "… and I'mma letyou finish…"
Let me, instead, say this about the staff as a group:
If there's one moment I am proudest of in NikeTalk's history, it's not breaking the XV1 sketch to the public - our first major exclusive, way backwhen I was actually posting news and sample pictures. It's not Ekin702's "wallet breakers," though those were great times. It isn'tNikeTalk's mention in Kicks 2, Details, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, or even the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It isn't the day we learnedthat a Jordan brand designer was posting on the site back in 2000, the day one of our own joined the industry as a designer or product line manager, or when Iknew, for certain, that Michael Jordan had heard of us. No, the proudest moment for me came when our staff members were presented with a choice:
Keep the revenue we generate from ads as a personal stipend (they'd clearly earned it)
Or
Pool that money together, all of the money we might otherwise receive as compensation, and donate it to charity.
Not one person - not ONE - spoke up in favor of keeping the money. Every single active member of the staff at that time was on board with the plan to begindonating our ad revenue to charity.
Sneaker fans have given an inordinate amount of attention in recent years to "defining moments." That act, to me, was our staff's definingmoment.
I consider it an honor to find myself in their company.
Since that decision, we've donated over $100,000 to various charities - and that's only the beginning.
2010 will, I hope, mark the beginning of a new era for our community.
As this is an opportune moment for reflection, I'd like to spend just a few lines to discuss my own personal involvement with the community and I hopeothers will celebrate by sharing their thoughts on this occasion as well.
If you'd told me ten years ago that NikeTalk would eventually surpass NikePark, I'd have been pleased. If you'd told me that we'd be here tenyears later, home to tens of thousands of members from around the world, that we'd be influencing the industry, that some of our members would go on todesign signature shoes, play in the NBA, sign major recording contracts, and that we'd be raising all of this money for charity - I'd have beenimpressed. If you'd told me that in ten years I wouldn't be wearing Air Jordans - I'd have been shocked.
A number of members can honestly claim they've grown up with NikeTalk. I'm one of them. I'll never forget my first pair of Air Jordans: Air JordanV in white, black, and red - size 2 & 1/2. It took over two decades, but I finally grew out of them.
Many people don't understand, at least at first, why it is that I continue to serve this community even though I no longer wear Air Jordans - or any of theshoes that serve as the focal point of our sneaker forums. Most can appreciate the reason why I no longer wear the shoes: I simply can't abide wearing ananimal product (even if the only animal derived component is the adhesive) when more ethically produced, animal-free shoes are readily available. (They justhappen to be far uglier at the moment, and that I can live with.) Why, though, would I stay…. on NikeTalk?
In September of 1999, less than 2 months before we'd found NikeTalk, I wrote a paper about sneakers (sneaker auctions, more specifically) for an introlevel undergraduate course I was taking at the time. Near the conclusion, I wrote:
It seems fitting, in a way, that we celebrate a decade of NikeTalk just a few short weeks after Michael Jordan's induction to basketball's hall offame. After all, isn't following in MJ's footprints (or replicas of the shoes he used to leave them) what NikeTalk is all about?
I told all my friends I'd just come up here, say 'thank you,' and walk off. I can't. There're too many people I need to thank. In all theposts you've seen - you didn't just see me. You saw Nelson C. You know that we began with a team of four admins and, at best, a couple dozen users. Youknow the reason the site is black, red, and white - because of our respect for Michael Jordan.
Most of you also know why we began.
You know that Nelson C and I, disgusted by the racism, hate, and chaos on the most popular sneaker forums at the time, vowed to create something better. Thatstarted a fire within us, a drive to build and maintain a community that felt like a true home for those with whom we share common interests.
As we went along, people added wood to that fire. We encountered more than our share of doubters starting out. Nelson even asked a number of people, wellthought of within the online sneaker enthusiast community at that time, to join us as part of the staff prior to launching the site. They turned him down. Theysaid, "others have tried something similar and failed." They said, "people will never stop going to NikePark. At best, you'll just playsecond fiddle." Some even went as far as to maintain - even years afterward - that NikeTalk's success had little to do with its people and everythingto do with fortuitous timing. Every single year, without fail, someone swears that NikeTalk has fallen off, that we're in decline. Many people, from theoutside looking in, fail to distinguish NT from its industry-shilling siblings. They consider us little more than a monument to shallow consumerism andconspicuous consumption.
The following people are jerks:
Er…
With all due respect to his Airness, let's not go that route. No more logs, no more flame wars. Let's be positive.
**Disclaimer: This will, I'm afraid, be long. If you don't want to read it - don't. It's not meant for you. If you must: postyour clichés, post your little .gifs, and keep it moving. This is only intended for those who actually care. **
In all seriousness, to use an old NikeTalk cliché, "it's not that serious." It is, admittedly, difficult at times to take a sneaker themedwebsite seriously. I can't sit here and compose a "state of the union" address or an acceptance speech with a straight face. That's what somehave been anticipating - but it wouldn't be honest.
That said, I know this occasion is one that many of you have sincerely been looking forward to and there are indeed a great many people who deserve my thanksindividually and our thanks collectively. All I can do is speak from the heart. It's just a social website. It's entertainment. It's fun. It'snot, however, without purpose.
NikeTalk emerged from friendship. It exists because of a friendship forged online between strangers gathered within a common space due to a shared interest.That is both the 'how' and the 'why' of NikeTalk. It exists because of the friendships we've made, because of the friendships we'dhoped to make, and because of the friendships we hoped YOU would make.
For laying the foundation, I have to acknowledge - there's no way around it - all the OGs from the late 90's. Among them, I have to thank, first andforemost, Nelson C. I have to thank JumpmanSt. These guys, I hope, will remain my lifelong friends. Growing up in the 80's, before the advent of theworldwide web, it seemed so improbable for anyone where I grew up to make friends with someone from the opposite coast, let alone the opposite side of theCanadian border, sight unseen. Many of our younger members take this for granted. Don't.
In the late '90's there was no one central location for sneaker fans. Everyone, it felt like, had their own homepage, their own unique contribution tomake. 23JumpmanSt, Greg's Nike World, NikePark, The Al Bundy Shoe Society, Jersey Joe's Joint, Nikeville, Pat's Air Jordan page, HypeSite, andNikeitis - to name but a few - made this little corner of the web worth returning to each day. All of them began, originally, purely for the love of the game.They weren't in it for the money because there was no money in it to be gained - at least at first. NikeTalk springs from that ethos. Their operators,people like C Soldia, Joe Galvan, Jersey Joe, Pat, Greg, and Nikeville all visited the forums and chat rooms and, eventually, they would all gather onNikeTalk. Some would join us as staff members.
We all give to NikeTalk. We share stories. We share information. We share laughs. We all do so voluntarily and most of us do so strictly for fun. For some,though, what they give to NikeTalk could rightly be called work. They don't just volunteer their time, their wit, their patience, or their expertise - theyvolunteer their labor. We all owe each and every person who's ever served on NikeTalk's staff our gratitude for allowing us to come this far, to keepour vision of a safe, friendly, respectful community alive:
- Nelson C
- Nikeville
- Krvanch
- C Soldia
- JumpmanSt
- Air Rev
- MagsXL
- Ceddie
- DJMrSulu
- Bastitch
- Holdenmichael
- Dirtylicious
- JRose5
- yoRAJAH (aka MrPlump)
- Ijapino
- 23ska909red02 (the first time I've ever typed that out in its entirety)
- Shegotgame
- Cameron Nelson
- Dmxfury
- Collie27
- Kdawg
- Kingcrux31
- AirAnt23
- Blazers21NTNP
- 3Canada
- Hodog16
- ATAR1
- Fanatic15
- AllanHouston20
- VABigPoppa
- West2East
- ArqAngel6
- JAYMATIK
- Sdubl
- Acts65
- Soychulo
- Manglor
- Animal Thug1539
- Daaznfella
- Memphisboi55
- Solesavage
- justhotkicks
- crisone
I wish I could offer individual praise for each one of you, but it would be less than you rightly deserve and we all know that this post will be greetedprimarily with moving gifs and unoriginal responses like "wall of text," "cool story bro," and the oh-so-timely "… and I'mma letyou finish…"
Let me, instead, say this about the staff as a group:
If there's one moment I am proudest of in NikeTalk's history, it's not breaking the XV1 sketch to the public - our first major exclusive, way backwhen I was actually posting news and sample pictures. It's not Ekin702's "wallet breakers," though those were great times. It isn'tNikeTalk's mention in Kicks 2, Details, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, or even the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It isn't the day we learnedthat a Jordan brand designer was posting on the site back in 2000, the day one of our own joined the industry as a designer or product line manager, or when Iknew, for certain, that Michael Jordan had heard of us. No, the proudest moment for me came when our staff members were presented with a choice:
Keep the revenue we generate from ads as a personal stipend (they'd clearly earned it)
Or
Pool that money together, all of the money we might otherwise receive as compensation, and donate it to charity.
Not one person - not ONE - spoke up in favor of keeping the money. Every single active member of the staff at that time was on board with the plan to begindonating our ad revenue to charity.
Sneaker fans have given an inordinate amount of attention in recent years to "defining moments." That act, to me, was our staff's definingmoment.
I consider it an honor to find myself in their company.
Since that decision, we've donated over $100,000 to various charities - and that's only the beginning.
2010 will, I hope, mark the beginning of a new era for our community.
As this is an opportune moment for reflection, I'd like to spend just a few lines to discuss my own personal involvement with the community and I hopeothers will celebrate by sharing their thoughts on this occasion as well.
If you'd told me ten years ago that NikeTalk would eventually surpass NikePark, I'd have been pleased. If you'd told me that we'd be here tenyears later, home to tens of thousands of members from around the world, that we'd be influencing the industry, that some of our members would go on todesign signature shoes, play in the NBA, sign major recording contracts, and that we'd be raising all of this money for charity - I'd have beenimpressed. If you'd told me that in ten years I wouldn't be wearing Air Jordans - I'd have been shocked.
A number of members can honestly claim they've grown up with NikeTalk. I'm one of them. I'll never forget my first pair of Air Jordans: Air JordanV in white, black, and red - size 2 & 1/2. It took over two decades, but I finally grew out of them.
Many people don't understand, at least at first, why it is that I continue to serve this community even though I no longer wear Air Jordans - or any of theshoes that serve as the focal point of our sneaker forums. Most can appreciate the reason why I no longer wear the shoes: I simply can't abide wearing ananimal product (even if the only animal derived component is the adhesive) when more ethically produced, animal-free shoes are readily available. (They justhappen to be far uglier at the moment, and that I can live with.) Why, though, would I stay…. on NikeTalk?
In September of 1999, less than 2 months before we'd found NikeTalk, I wrote a paper about sneakers (sneaker auctions, more specifically) for an introlevel undergraduate course I was taking at the time. Near the conclusion, I wrote:
"At its most superficial level, Item number 11624 is nothing but an aging conglomerate of painted leather, fabric, and rubber. Certainly, $381 is a ludicrous price for such an item. However, who can place a price upon an identity? What is the proper fee for emotions, friends, and memories? In essence, Vintage USA sells us what they do not possess. They sell the embodiment of our own connotations; they send us the key that unlocks what we have denied ourselves in our minds. We purchase the messenger but we create the message. As each bid is placed, Item 11624 transforms. It changes from Air Jordan 9, the shoe produced during Jordan's brief sabbatical from the NBA to the shoe someone wore when their team won the county championship. From leather and rubber to flesh and blood, an intangible feeling, an electrical impulse, a piece in a collection, a twinkle in an eye."
A little over a week ago, CIDMAN911 wrote on my profile page to thank me for serving as an inspiration - terribly generous words that I could onlyhope to eventually live up to. In responding to his comments, I wrote:"When we were sick as children, those who cared for us didn't offer us chicken soup because they wanted to teach us to support cruelty. They wanted to be kind. When I latched on to Air Jordans, it wasn't wearing another creature's flesh that so captured my imagination. When I first listened to hip hop, it wasn't because I wanted to celebrate stick up kids. Culture is living and it's up to all of us to move it forward, to find new and more just forms and expressions for the underlying sentiments that drive us to be like Mike, grip a mic like Rakim, or offer comfort foods to someone we care about. NikeTalk, to me, is about sharing with and learning from others and working together to help our culture evolve into a more just and equitable form that better expresses who we truly are as people - and that helps us better prepare ourselves and our young to become the people we all aspire toward."
Virtually all of us, merely by dint of our presence here, are privileged. We have the extreme luxury of choosing which sneakers we'd like towear - even though for many of us, myself included, that first pair of Air Jordans seemed unattainable. Why did we choose the ones we did? Why, more generally,do we care about sneakers? What do they mean to us?
Air Jordans, for me, represent the greatest who ever played the sport I love most of all. They represent where I come from. They represent a part of myculture. They represent my friends. They are sports. They are style. They are hip hop. They were a label I affixed to myself that I felt spoke loudly about whoI am. They identified me to like kinds. They elicited knowing nods and opened enthusiastic conversations between people who only remained strangers until twosets of eyes met… each other's shoes.
I don't need Nikes to do any of these things for me anymore. NikeTALK does them better. NikeTALK is a truer expression of who I am and what I value.NikeTALK is something that more accurately represents me than a cheaply made covering of skin, connective tissue, petroleum, polyurethane, rubber, and allmanner of other materials both organic and inorganic. It's a way to give back. It's an opportunity to move forward.
If you don't think NikeTalk can be all of these things AND a silly message board - you haven't been paying close enough attention. In the process oflaughing, in the process of having fun, in the process of talking kicks, talking sports, music, and everything in between, we've formed some meaningfulfriendships. We prove that by how we stand up for and support our fellow members and, perhaps more poignantly, how we've come together to mourn their loss.Those of you who've actually cared about one another are responsible for making NikeTalk a true community.
As such, if I am to thank anyone, it should go without saying - yet it bears affirmation at every turn - that NikeTalk would not exist, could not exist,without you, our fellow members.
This site is what you make of it each and every day. And, each and every day, you remake it. You create new topics. You add new replies. You share thesite with your friends, families, and coworkers. NikeTalk is no more about Nike than a class reunion is about your high school. It's simply a reason togather. NikeTalk isn't about sneakers. It's about you. It's about us.
(Cue the Malcolm X style "I am NikeTalk" montage.)
I tend to take the long view more often than not. When, in the past, kids have attempted to start trouble or otherwise flail wildly for the attention ofothers, I kept their antics in perspective. "I've been here before you joined," I'd note, "and I'll be here long after youleave." Ten years ago, I had the distinct honor of making the first post on NikeTalk. I'd always sort of figured, in a somber way, that I'dprobably make the last post, too. Generally, it's the janitor who turns the lights on in the morning, before anyone else shows up, and it's the janitorwho shuts them off at day's end, after everyone else has left. What we, as the site's caretakers, do each day is hardly glamorous. It is, far moreoften than not, thankless. It's also satisfying. It's rewarding to see this place - this online equivalent of four walls and a door - filled with life.I wanted to be here to oversee it all. I don't feel that way anymore.
I hope I don't make the last post. I hope I don't take part in every anniversary. NikeTalk is bigger than any one of us. The ideathat NikeTalk enshrines is far larger than NikeTalk itself. No one can own our community - because our community, our true community, is not a place. Ourcommunity isn't a parcel of real estate transferrable by deed. It isn't even a domain or data. Our community is an idea, a value, that, when heldcollectively, is as real and as permanent as any location ever could be.
It's not, by any means, life or death, but it's a small, yet significant, part of what makes our lives worth living, worth sharing, worth remembering -
And worth celebrating.
Happy 10th, NikeTalk.
[edit: I knew I'd manage to leave somebody off... my apologies.]
