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.
The solution to bullying is to do as the bully says /s
It seems to be working for America right now.
Good luck fighting 200 8 year olds
Easy as an adult, not so much as a kid with a similar age
Buy him a crowbar.
Ultimate tool against bullying
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.
How do you find these?
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.
Probably aliexpress or something
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.
You’re a shit parent if you’re just going to give in.
Bullying like that can be extremely traumatic for kids. Yeah it’s a shit situation, but I understand why they wouldn’t want to deal with it. kids are generally shitty people in middle school and use any excuse to bully each other. You basically have 3 choices 1) give in and get the thing, 2) let them get bullied for the rest of middle school, 3) harden them to the point where the other kids are fucking terrified of them.
As if parents and schools can’t intervene.
Shouldn’t those 2 groups specificallybe trying to educate children to do better?It doesn’t really matter if the schools do. And the bully’s parents are where they get it from. Kids don’t care about branding unless they’re instructed to do so by their families. I was bullied by a guy for years at school. Several adults tried to intervene, but it only stopped after I embedded a knife in the wall next to his head from across the room. Bullies like a reaction unless they think there’s a legitimate chance you’ll snap and murder them. Unfortunately that’s not advice you can pass to your children.
I believe there’s plenty that can be done.
And it may get the kids to react.
Maybe not with a knife but bullies aren’t generally very tough anyway when confronted.
I always find anti bullying measures kind of a waste of time. Adults will bully you way more, it just isn’t a swirly.
it’s making you fill out an application on a job prospects website even though the info is on the resume.
It’s every month when we pay rent.
It’s every paycheck we receive that doesn’t include our surplus labor value.
It’s a overdraft fee from your bank.
It’s ComcastXfinity purchasing your local government and ensuring you have no alternatives for an ISP.
It’s the “unprecedented call volume” you wait through that happens because the customer service phone line is purposely understaffed.
It’s your health insurance denying your claim.
It’s everywhere. Just because we hide it behind a curtain of the economic system doesn’t mean it changes the nature of these interactions.
If you want your kid to be successful, they should be a bully. Bullies are successful as fuck. Every parent should be teaching their child to be the biggest asshole douchebag bully ever.
What’s the right move?
Who knows if it’s true. Kids can lie/exaggerate when they want stuff.
If it is true then wtf kind of school is this? I would go have a talk.
What if some other parent couldn’t afford them? Will he let his kid join the mob mentality and bully him?
This goes further than shoes.
Just buying the stuff to get done with it and letting this toxic environment fester is def not the right move.
But fuck it, I’m not raising his kid.
You’re just a shit person.
LOL your opinion means nothing
Lmao, so what does your opinion mean?
TF are you?
Some asshole getting blocked.
Bye assholeChrist, what a snowflake.
For not wanting kids to grow up as shallow marketing simps?
Let me guess, you wear expensive shoes don’t ya
I grew up with a tenuous grasp on the middle class and generally don’t buy much premium shit, despite being able to afford a life of luxury. My most expensive shoes are a $100 pair I wear with a suit. The shoes I wear most days are $25. You’re just an asshole, is all.
I’m the asshole? Lmao you Litterally think bullying is all right and normal
Fighting one bully at a time by wearing the shoes they want you to wear /s
You’re the asshole for passing judgement on people who are trying to protect their kids from circumstances that are unknown to you.
Yes, not giving in to toxic bullying for having less money makes you an asshole, right.
What if another parent doesn’t even have the choice to give in bcs they can’t afford it? too bad for the kid right?
You’re the POS here.
Instead of getting him 300$ 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
$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.
Happened to me. Got Nikes, got teased because they were not a good enough model. Kids are monsters.
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.
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.
Time to find a good counterfeit.
It’s not a Nike thing. It’s a kid thing. Kids are dicks, sorry
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.
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
As far as I hear every time: Yep
- A european
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.
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.
Yep. Agreed
Most of my immediate family are on Android and use Signal. I’m happier this way.
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.
I mean, I can see it
Caprice (or Taurus?) police car and fingerless glove really date this photo.
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.
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.
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.
Same for my kids’ school.
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.
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.
Is he gonna smoke the kids in his Hokas or is he gonna smoke with the other kids behind the bleachers with his hookah?
Both, it’s a dual-purpose item!
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!
Probably because it was an affluent school. In a school with more poor kids, stuff like this is their little chance at feeling higher status than their peers even though it’s all imaginary based on marketing.
I went to a poor kid school.
Nobody had sneakers
Ha ha, I’m pretty old so, British Knights and Pro Wings were cursed shoes
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
British Knights were the cursed shoes when I was a kid.
I always thought they were old man shoes. LOL 🤣. I’m I the bully?
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…
Is this still happening? It was happening 45 years ago, ffs.
Happened to me as a kid, my kids have a much kinder environment without bullying and such.
It also happened to me 20 years ago so I guess nothing changes. If you wore Sketchers, you were going to get bullied.
Nowadays it’s about who has the most “designer” clothing, I wouldn’t call a Yeezy designer.
Since I can recall.
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.
He chose Hookas instead of Hoka
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.
My elementary school bully got hit by a car and it ended his college basketball career
How much did your repairs cost?
priceless
for everything else there’s mastercard
