SneakerPlay Interview

SneakerPlay has recently made their site live for everyone to view. During the Beta version, it was invite only and the only way someone could look at it was if they were a member. SneakerPlay is still invite only, but it is a great place to share kicks and battle. So today I sat down with RJ from SneakerPlay to talk about how the site started and what we can expect from it. He also gave us 10 invites to give away! So send an email to Necro@ctothejl.com with a picture of your most beat up kicks, we will pick the winner at the end of the week and will email you the invites. Enjoy!

1. What’s up RJ, for the people that do not know you tell us a little something about yourself and what you do.

–I’m R to the J from around the way (ok, that was corny! lol). I’m from Toronto’s East side, better known as Scarborough, the screw face capital. I’m just hustling, finishing up my last year of University, doing a psych degree, and focusing on Sneaker Play-all day!

2. How did you come up with the idea of Sneaker Play?

–The idea behind the site is really simple; we set out to create a comfortable online environment where individuals who are influenced by and influence the sneaker culture can connect. Late last year, I was just talking on the phone with one of my close friends, Mo, and I don’t remember what we were talking about but the word sneaker beefs came up. So it all started out as a joke I said to Mo ‘wouldn’t it be crazy if we made a website where people could literally have sneaker beefs and battle shoes.’ From there the idea evolved into a new type of community site centered on a culture that connected us all. We teamed up with Rob Chia, Mo’s high school buddy and we hammered out the service in four months. We’ve got nothing but love from the community from the minute we launched, so we couldn’t be happier about that.

3. Who’s the mind behind Sneaker Play? or do you run it yourself?

–I don’t run Sneaker Play by myself. It’s 3 of us Mo, Rob and I. We all work really hard to maintain the site, implement features and updates on the site. It’s definitely a collective effort between the three of us.

4. I’ve been on Sneaker Play for a while now, why did you make invite only? Are you trying to keep all the haters out of Sneaker Play? Haha.

–When we first decided to create the site, the invite only structure was sort of a test; either the community would love it, or hate it. Seeing how other popular sneaker forums were going, we knew that people wanted something a little bit more mature and exclusive. We’re really excited that the invite only structure has been received well throughout the Sneakerplay community and we constantly look for feedback from our existing members and they’ve decided that they wanted an invite only community. We also feel, an invite only system attracts members that want to be apart of this community and help it grow. And yeah it keeps out the haters/spammers, so that’s an added bonus!

5. What are your plans for Sneaker Play? I know its only invite only right now, but will you ever make it so that anyone can join?

–We have a lot of cool concepts and ideas that we want to implement in the near future. Lookout for contests and giveaways in the next couple of weeks. Our goal is to keep the spot fun and interactive. We think that the invite only formula is working really well right now, and opening up the site for public registration isn’t in our future plans.

6. Since you’re the head of sneaker play, you have to have a mean collection, What kind of kicks do you collect?

–Believe it or not my collection is pretty soft. I was one of those kids who used to get only 1 pair a year but I always made that pair count. I’m trying to get back some of those kicks that I had growing up, like the Reebok Kamikaze’s (Kemp was the man, until you know what happened), AM Penny’s, Air More Tempo’s and Ewing’s, mostly ball shoes back then. My tastes have matured a bit since. I’m more into AM 1s, 90s, 180s, and Puma Clyde’s. I’m also feeling Vans, Visvim, Onitsuka Tiger and Creative Rec…trying to diversify my collection.

7. What do you think about the whole street culture and what it has turned out to be to this day? I remember when you could cop a pair of Futura dunks for 110.00 bucks. Now they’re going for 200+ on eBay

–Hype sells no matter what industry you’re in. Brands know how to keep people fiending … they play with the supply and demand by limiting the production because it’s what gets our attention. This strategy makes sense for the big corporations because it keeps them cool and in demand. At the end of the day all of this only means, higher prices, more re-sellers and hurt pockets for the majority of us.

8. Clothing lines, clothing lines, everyone and their mother has one, why do you think everyone just wants to randomly start up a clothing line, I mean some of the new lines are crazy, but it just seems people can think they can just put out a few tee’s and become the next hotness.

–I think a lot of this has to be attributed to technology and how it has made
the whole process much simpler. Ten years ago, logistically it would have been extremely difficult to launch a clothing brand unless you were someone who was well connected and had a huge budget. Today, every manufacturing company on the planet is on the internet, and design applications like Adobe Creative Suite cost a couple of hundred dollars, so the risk of entering this market is substantially reduced. I think this is great for young kids with great design sense to get a chance and prove themselves. The major urban clothing brands have had a monopoly on the whole fashion industry for too long. At the same time, we are seeing a huge influx of new smaller brands popping up daily and most are looking too similar for our liking, that said; over time, the brands with substance and creative drive will last and the ones that are doing this for the ‘cool’ factor will fade away.

9. The internet has played a big role in the sneaker community, blogs are popping up everyday now, how do you feel about the internet and how it hype’s up everything.

–Hype definitely sells. It’s like a double edged sword, some brands justify the hype they get because they’re constantly putting out fresh products, but then there are brands/products that are hyped when they clearly don’t deserve it. In general though, the internet has definitely made things bigger and stronger. It has allowed the community to transcend border lines; it’s connected the culture and truly made it a global network. Our generation can’t remember a time without the internet…it’s where we get our info, read blogs, network, and pretty much go to kill time. Its second nature for us to parlay what we do and talk about offline through to our online networks.

10. Thanks for your time RJ, I really appreciate it, any last words/shout outs?

–A big shout out to everyone who’s been down with and supporting SP from the beginning!

Interview : Chris

Editing: Frank