It’s funny…before I REALLY got into sneakers…I was REALLY into collecting rap CDs. (And before rap CDs, it was sports cards and comic books). Like anything I saw in 'The Source’, I was coppin. I got REALLY into the regional rap stuff - and because my (real) name is JT and JT The Bigga Figga was a big-time producer in the Bay Area, I had to buy any and everything he touched.
So I copped his whole catalog. Then his cousin’s whole catalog. Then some random singer who was on some random track of his cousin’s best friend’s whole catalog. Everything under the Get Low umbrella. It was stupid. Cuz at least half of it just wasn’t all that good. But it was fun and it was a task and I needed to just complete it. It got to the point that I would go into 4 or 5 CD stores on every trip to the city and I’d thumb through row after row of rap CDs and wouldn’t find a single CD that I didn’t have. I even almost copped a CD that a friend had that I didn’t like simply to say I owned them all:
Towards the end of my obsession, I felt like I had every CD I had ever wanted. Rap was no longer novel to me. I had listened to it all. I read all the liner notes. I felt like I owned everything I wanted to own. I only had one set of ears. I could only listen to one album at a time. And the vast majority of the shit I owned I wasn’t listening to. I was only listening to a handful of it…why own all of these CDs if none of them ever get played? So I just started giving CDs away.
Friends would come over just to hang out and I’d be like ‘hey, do you want any of these CDs?’ CDs were a lot of money for us back then. Sam Goody was charging $17.99 for most CDs, and in 1995 or 1996 - for a 15-year-old - that was at least two weeks worth of allowance. Before I even realized what I was doing - I had given away half of my collection. And I didn’t even care. I was over it. I was over just holding onto CDs I wasn’t listening to. I no longer felt the need to just hoard them. I wanted others to enjoy them. But…again…how many times, over the years, have I regretted giving away those CDs? A lot.
As I’m looking around at IG and I’m looking at people and their collections - it seems like we’re all just hoarding shit. And with 24.2 billion pairs of shoes being produced every year and very few of us actually running through those shoes - it looks like we’re all hoarding shoes. Just about everyone I know in this space is hoarding shoes. Or clothes. Or. Something.
And I can recognize it, because I come from a family of hoarders. Maybe *mild* hoarders (we still clean our homes and do a good job of hiding our piles of stuff). But the sheer amount of shit each of us owns is overwhelming. We hoard all kinds of shit. For my mom - amongst other things - it’s clothes. For my dad - it’s tools and musical instruments. For me - clothes and shoes. My grandpa was like an actual hoarder - he owned a 3 floor home on Staten Island that was packed to the brim with anything you could imagine. His home was FULL of random shit. VHS tapes and cigar boxes and toiletries and clothes and anything you could imagine. When he passed away - I was the one who had to empty his home and prep it for sale. I found random 2pac CDs and wads of cash and an actual 6 shooter and...god. I filled - to the brim - two 40 foot dumpsters with his ‘collectibles’. It was brutal. All this time my grandpa spent collecting this stuff and the only way I could mentally deal with it was to get it the fuck out of my sight. So what’s gonna happen when I die? Is my grandson gonna just trash all of the shit I put all this time and energy into? All of these goddam shoes and CDs and clothes and cards? And could I blame him?
Yesterday, I came across this tweet…it really just let me know that I’m not alone. And this isn’t the first time I’ve seen him do this…but it’s refreshing to see. I remember when I was young and would clean my room and just purge a bunch of shit and how good that would feel…I haven’t done that in *YEARS*.
Sometimes I wish I had that kind of resolve…maybe one day…
Well. That about wraps this topic up. I think the sneaker hangover has somewhat subsided. Now if you’ll please excuse me, I’m gonna go scour GOAT for another pair of shoes to buy…
Dude. You do have a problem. But who am I to laugh. I have the same problem in quality if not in quantity. The regret is a huge problem. How do you get free from the grip of regret??
Re: Ben Baller. I just cannot follow him. He is on a different planet. I like to stare and gawk, but in reality, seeing all the stuff he owns is too depressing to me. It does not motivate me at all. Thanks for sharing those tweets, which I presume are now deleted. It's even more depressing that all that ish isn't worth a dollar to him. And he's building a big house... and still receiving loads of stuff in the mail and live-unboxing it online? I wouldn't exactly call that "resolve".
Excuse me while I go check the tracking on a pair of vintage hightops I bought from a collector in France who is unloading his sneakers...