The Algorithm Is Flattening Sneaker Culture | JT, The Sneaker Savant

JT, AKA The Sneaker Savant, has been in the sneaker world long enough to remember when eBay was church, when Dadas sold out, and when nobody questioned either of those things. He's been a fixture in the Sneaker History Discord for years, built a following on Instagram under @TheSneakerSavant, writes over at thesneakersavant.substack.com, and has been quietly one of the most interesting thinkers in this whole space... he just doesn't always show his face. This one gets personal pretty fast. We talk about the Portland gathering and what it meant to finally be in a room full of people who just get it, without needing to explain themselves. We get into why Instagram is broken, why eBay is still our church, and why the algorithm is really good at exactly one thing... flattening culture. JT makes the case that the Dadas were absolutely a thing in Northern California and he's completely right, and we both wonder what stories are being lost because the internet only amplifies what everybody already agrees on. We also get into the sneaker card JT made for the Portland trip, a Jordan card with MJ in a Blazers jersey, how that one piece of cardstock led to a conversation with Ken Black, one of the architects of Nike team sports, which somehow led to JT learning who designed a jersey he'd wanted since he was a kid living in Great Britain. That story alone is worth the listen. This is a conversation about sneakers, but honestly it's more about community, memory, and why the stuff th