The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 260 — 👀 Peeping being Nike's curtain
The numbers behind SNKRS' bot protection plan are wild, y'all.
Goooood morning, folks. Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thank you so much for rocking with me today. I appreciate you.
Hope you had an excellent week! Happy December. This is definitely a top 2 month of the year and not just because my birthday is in it. Well, that’s part of it. But whatever. Anyway, let’s look forward to a great holiday season.
Let’s dive in.
12 billion bot calls?!?!?!?
Nike is finally giving us a sliver of the transparency we’ve been asking for from the SNKRS app.
The details: Nike dropped details on bot protection for the SNKRS app on Wednesday. The brand showed us how massive of an operation it has become and exactly how much they have to filter.
Nike claims to have been using bot protection for their drops over the last 7 years.
It also says bot attacks can make up 10% to 50% of entries on a given release, which is an insane number.
They filter out bot entries before winners are selected on every release, which explains why it takes so long for Ws (and Ls!) to come through.
The company also claims it stops as many as 12 billion “bot calls” per month on the SNKRS app. However, it’s worth noting that that number was cited as “20 million bot submissions” when the post first dropped. No idea what triggered that edit.
That’s worth a clarification so I’ve reached out to Nike about that changed language and will update once I get a response.
The kicker is that despite all that filtering, all bots aren’t nixed from the process. Nike only says it removes a “majority of bots” from its launches. There’s no telling how many get through.
The big picture: This isn’t just a bot problem — it’s a traffic problem. It all circles around heightened demand for short supply on Nike’s kicks. For certain releases to receive up to 50% of entries from bot accounts shows exactly how big an issue this is.
Those numbers show us just how out of luck we are when it comes to this app.
For something like the Lost & Found drop, for example, we’re quite literally battling hundreds of thousands of bots while also battling each other.
There’s so much traffic that comes with this stuff between humans and bots it just gets to be impossible to manage. Which is why on a massive drop like that you see so many errors.
My takeaway: We need something new. As long as this system doesn’t change, these problems won’t change. And none of it feels sustainable.
No idea what that new thing could be, but I hope it comes soon.
Virgil’s legacy will continue whether we like it or not
I’ve made my feelings on the continuation of Nike’s Off-White collaborations without Virgil Abloh known. Things will never be the same without him. That creative spark he had cannot be replicated, so I’d much rather it rest easy along with him.
Be smart: That was always wishful thinking on my part. It was never going to happen. There's too much money to be made with what he created.
What’s happening: That’s exactly why it’s not going away. We have official word now. In a New York Times profile on Shannon Abloh — Virgil’s widow — it was revealed that we’ll be getting lots more Off-White. Very soon.
Shannon Abloh said there are “hundreds of projects” Virgil worked on that were never released. She plans on releasing them for him.
John Hoke, the chief creative officer for Nike, said there’s at least a “year’s worth” of Off-White Nike collabs already in the production pipeline with release plans.
There’s also reportedly a “50-year plan” for Abloh’s legacy, according to Howard Feller, who is a business advisor for the Ablohs.
So, yes. This is happening. And I won’t lie — it’s a bit disconcerting for me. Mrs. Abloh knows Virgil better than literally any of us could ever dream of. And I think she’ll do a fine job. Her heart is very clearly in the right place. She’s more concerned with spreading his art and vision than anything else — specifically when it comes to making the industry more diverse.
She has a clear vision of what she wants to accomplish with the Virgil Abloh foundation.
“He didn’t want to be the only Black man in the room sitting at the table,” she said. He wanted not just to model a future for “kids that didn’t know they could be an architect, or the designer of Vuitton instead of a basketball player or a football player…That’s what the foundation will focus on: 12- to 17-year-olds, to give them the portfolios they need. I know what he would want, and I feel just as strongly as he did about it — even though I’m a white female.”
The other side: But even with that being the case, there’s no telling how things will go. There are so many interested parties in Virgil’s work. Some are looking to preserve the art, but some also looking to make a buck.
The two biggest entities with their hands involved are LVMH and Nike — two mega corporations who put their bottom lines first before everything else.
LVMH owns Off-White. Virgil sold it to the company in 2020. Shannon has mostly been hands off
With that being said, it’s very clear that if Shannon Abloh has anything to do with any of this (which she does) she’s doing everything in her power to make sure Abloh’s foundation work continues and both his art as well as his ideas live on.
Knowing that leaves me with a bit of comfort.
A crucial update on Nike’s gender pay gap lawsuit
A huge determination was just made regarding the gender pay gap lawsuit filed against Nike by 14 female employees.
The news: A judge denied a motion for class certification that would’ve brought more than 5,200 current and former employees on board as plaintiffs, Portland Business Journal’s Demi Lawrence reports.
That’s a huge deal considering how far-reaching the case would’ve become. The judge ruled that the plaintiffs didn’t provide sufficient enough evidence of “discrimination against the class” from the company.
The backdrop: This is all part of an ongoing lawsuit originally filed in 2018.
Court documents from the plaintiffs that were unsealed in November provided evidence that alleged there was an $11,000 gender pay gap for employees between 2015 and 2019.
Nike has continuously pushed back, saying the company has achieved pay parity.
What’s next: There will be an appeal. Plaintiff attorney Lauren Salerno Owens dropped a statement following the ruling.
"We agree with the magistrate judge’s observation that Nike’s records reflect 'a statistically significant disparity among pay for women compared to pay for men at Nike.' We respectfully disagree with the denial of class certification and will appeal that aspect of the ruling…We are confident that the evidence shows that Nike’s policies caused female employees to be paid less and receive fewer opportunities for promotion than male employees."
This is a big deal: We’ve seen and heard all the stories about Nike’s treatment of women over the years — it’s part of the reason why there hasn’t been any stability at the head of their diversity and inclusion wing. This case could go a long way in changing that culture depending on how things end.
This case is far from over, buit’s’s something definitely worth being glued to. Stay tuned.
Can I get a quick word from you?
So 2023 is coming fast and I have my own thoughts on what the sneaker world will look like when we get to this time next year.
But I’d love to know what you think! I’m linking a Google Form here and I’d love it if you could drop your burning questions and predictions for the sneaker industry in 2023. Think Adidas has a major comeback? Think Nike still sues the pants off of everyone? Let me know!
You can submit your thought in the form of a question or statement — however, you choose to do so.
I’ll take some of those responses and share them here along with my thoughts. It’ll be like a Kicks You Wear mailbag! Fun, right?
Just drop your thoughts here and let’s have some fun!
#TheKicksWeWear
Y’ALL KNOW THE VIBES LETS GOOOO
The homie Geoff kicked us off with the mirage grey protection pack joints from NB. SHEESH bruh.
The homie St. Thicc (fire name btw) came through in these BEAUTIFUL Forces. Man. I wish AF1s looked good on me.
The homie Storm popped out with ALL the AJ1 heat and a little bit of Air Force 1 love, too.
My guy Plain Pat came through with the Air Trainer Max 2s and these things are CLASSIX.
The homie Rick Dubb popped out in these custom dunks and I SWORE they were the Canary Tiffanies, y’all.
The homie Kalla Kow gave us our first pair of Lost and Founds and I CANNOT WAIT TO WEAR MINE WOW.
The homie Sumeet came up one one of the greatest sneakers of all time. ONE OF THE GREATEST EVER.
Then my dog Brett sent us home as fly as ever in these incredible AJ1s and an amazing suit and WOWWWW this is just one of the flyest looks I’ve ever seen.
SMOKED THAT Y’ALL. Man.
Thank you so much for rocking with me, fam! Appreciate y’all. You’re the absolute best. Remember, KYW is out for Monday. But I’ll be back like I never left on Friday. See you then!
Don’t forget to jump in the survey! Let me know what’s on your mind for 2023. This will help shape the coverage for next year.
Til next time, folks. Peace and love. Be easy. Be safe. Be kind. And we out.
-Sykes 💯