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.
Same for iphone. Fuck Apple.
Congrats, there’s a good chance you just bought into being part of the problem. Your son is probably now a card-carrying member of the group that teases other kids for being less than.
Kids are very materialistic.
When I was in middle school, I was probably the worst for me with the bullying. I came from a family that didn’t have a whole lot of money. Like even the cheap stuff we had to cut corners with. And well I was fully aware, that there was no real difference between what I had and what they had, it didn’t stop the consistent bullying. And the teachers never cared. The other students didn’t care in fact some of them would chime in too. And when that’s your life for several hours a day 5 days a week… You eventually just get to a breaking point.
I’ll never forget the day I basically had a complete emotional breakdown because we were doing back to school shopping at Target, and I saw one of those trapper keepers. With a weird designs on the outside. They were all the rage. And it was like eight bucks I think. My mom did end up buying it for me, but only because her soon-to-be 5th grader, collapsed in the isle crying. I don’t remember what I told her, but all I could think about was having that was going to make life just a little bit easier for me.
Kids can be real assholes to other kids.
My school everyone wore the same uniform. The only choice we could make was shoes or sandals 99.9% chose shoes. Sandal wearers got so much shit for it. It was a death sentence.
Kids find a way
I sort of want to do a stake out and bust out on the playground if he gets teased.
Phrasing!
One of my good runner friends (3000+ miles a year and owns 100+ pairs of shoes) is the biggest sketchers fans I know of. Apparently their good running shoes aren’t even cheap anymore, like $110+.
I imagine these kids aren’t wearing super shoes anyway, or else they would know the puma’s are faster
I think that says more about inflation than Skechers. Even cheap shoes are expensive now.
Yeah, I agree! Sadly the days of fighting back are over. I have faith he can scrap is needed
Teach your kid to kick some teeth out with his Skechers. I have a feeling that your kid is going to get bullied no matter what he wears.
The solution to bullying is to do as the bully says /s
I was unironically told that I should “keep a lower profile” if I want to avoid being bullied. I spoke to nobody and hugged the walls walking from class to class. I don’t know how much lower of a profile I could keep.
Same. The principal and vice principals at the last high school I attended were also the football coaches. Going to them about how the jocks were kicking the shit out of me for being too nerdy and queer for their tastes got me that same “just keep a lower profile” bullshit from the highest authority figures in that dump.
It seems to be working for America right now.
Good luck fighting 200 8 year olds
LPT If you back down a narrow corridor, make them come down single file, you can take them one by one.
If they all tried to dogpile you at the same time I’m fairly certain the laws of thermodynamics would result in a dead you, as well as several dozen well-done kids lol.
Easy as an adult, not so much as a kid with a similar age
Buy him a crowbar.
Ultimate tool against bullying
An old steel rod car antenna is the ultimate. All you have to do is slice the air a few times and the sound alone will keep everyone away
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 $10, including postage. They’re all there. They just don’t have the actual name label on them yet, because that’s all they do when they reach the distributor, though, so might be useless to you.
How do you find these?
I was too lazy to actually go find the specific warehouses. I just downloaded taobao, it’s partially in English now. I’ve seen and saved a few tiktoks with descriptions of the locations and which places do which items / brands. I just genuinely don’t have time to deep dive and do proper research, though.
Probably aliexpress or something
Nah, you usually have to direct message them via WhatsApp. You will have to pay like 15 or 20 shipping, so people usually buy a few pairs at a time.
There are specific marketplaces for things, but they tend to only sell bulk. Aliexpress is all resellers.
I am not even sure if the ones I posted sell exact knock offs or not though.
Instead of getting him 300$ 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
The shoes are probably not $300…more like $100. And the kids goal is to not feel socially ostracized, not to spend money frivolously.
Having to spend money tp avoid being socially ostracized IS frivolously spending money.
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Unworthy of serious attention; trivial.
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Inappropriately silly.
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Of little weight or importance; not worth notice; slight.
Tell me you have never been bullied without actually saying it.
To each their own…I would count not being socially ostracized as highly important, appropriate, and of significant weight.
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Kids tease whomever they perceive as weak.
If he get the shows, it’s the wrong model. If he get the right model, it’s his har color. Etc.
$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.
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 far as I hear every time: Yep
- A european
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
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.
