The topic of owning a pair of replica shoes has been trending on sneaker Tiktok, the side of tiktok that only discusses sneakers. Resellers and shoe lovers have been arguing with people in the comment sections on whether or not owning a pair of reps is smart. 

Sneaker resellers are people who buy the shoes for low, or retail, and then sell for high to make profit. Some of them use bots, a software designed to autocomplete the checkout process and make multiple purchases. This cheating way makes it harder for the public to get the shoes for retail and causes them to pay resell. 

Let’s say you were one of the many people who were trying to get the Travis Scott Jordan 1’s in 2019 for the retail price of $175 and the resellers with the bots beat you to it. You now have two options: pay over a thousand dollars to get the shoes or buy the fake version.

This is where the argument begins.

Resellers and the people who believe in the importance of authenticity think that there’s more value in having the real pair and that if you can’t afford it then don’t wear it. 

Meanwhile, the people who are okay with wearing fakes think shoes are shoes and that it’s basically the same thing since they’re both being made in the same factories. 

There’s tons of websites that sell reps and sometimes you can even find pairs that are cheaper than retail. The risk you’re taking when buying from these sites is not knowing how the shoe is gonna look when it gets here.

I don’t have a problem against reps but I personally would not wear them. I agree that there is a lot of value in wearing the real shoe and I wouldn’t want to risk buying a bogus pair of shoes, even if they are less than retail, but as long as you have a decent looking pair of reps then it’s fine.

I only have an issue when people buy reps to sell them as if they’re legit. That’s not only lying but it’s also setting up the person you’re selling to for failure because let’s say they didn’t notice that they were fakes but the next person they try to sell to does. 

None of this even matters and it’s sad that this is even a conversation we’re having. At the end of the day, wear what you wanna wear. Just don’t lie about it.