So I got a new pairs of Vans and I was really feelin em. That was until they tore six days later.. I should mention that onside of the tongue of my brand new shoes was printed: "Vans, world's #1 skateboard shoe" . Needles to say, i was a little disappointed. Now I am a skateboarder and have been for the past 10 years so I know that griptape tears shoes to shreds. But that usually takes months. Six f*king days? Thats not even a week! Its not like i even skated 'em hard (side note: though I do have an abnormally large pinky toe) but here we are 8 days after purchase and I'm putting holes in my socks. I should also mention that that these were not the flimsy type of Vans but the brand new pro model of one of their most high-profile pros.
So now I look at the feet of everybody around me and see by a vast majority, they are wearing Vans too! I looked down at my blown out shoes and thought to myself, "I hate fucking Vans, everybody buys em cause they're popular and they don't even know they suck for skating."
When I got home I was psyched to see that I got my new Thrasher, my very first issue not bought from a newstand. I was flipping through and a couple pages in one of the pages I turned seemed to be about three times as thick as a normal one. This was quite odd and I flipped the page to reveal: A Vans ad with the very pro whose shoes I had bought. The second page folded out to reveal him doing a 50-50 grind. This was very wierd, a three page spread with one of the pages thicker than the others, all for a 50-50 grind and one of those oh-so-popular plaid shirts. This all got me realizing how fucked up it really is.
Vans makes so much money from people buying their shit, people who don’t even have a clue about skating. They make enough to take out an ad in Thrasher with a thicker page just for some image-creating ad. And now their skate shoes aren’t holding up to what they claim to be the best at: skating. Vans doesn’t care about skating. They’re exploiting it. I’ve owned three pairs of NikeSB’s and loved each of them. I would rather buy nikes than Vans now because to me Vans is the lowest of the low. Skaters like I have loved Vans for decades and over the past few years they’ve put a blind over our heads. But I am not taking any more of it; I’m gonna support real skateboard companies. Ones that don’t have their products splashed all over frat boys and gossip girls. I am going to shoe-goo my Vans for now, cause they cost alot of money for someone like me, a 20 year old man trying to go to school full time while also working enough to make rent.. These gotta last all summer, but thats the last time I buy Vans. Period.
