March 26th – Air Max Day. Now to be forever known as ‘The day after National Sneaker Grading day.’ I’m still amazed every March 26th when I see everyone on social media go bananas over Air Max Day…I mean, it’s something to participate in, I suppose.⁣ Let’s see if we can build something around March 25th – National Sneaker Grading day.
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Once again, Nike effectively created a ‘sneaker holiday’ and named it ‘The Day After National Sneaker Grading Day.’ It’s crazy, but not that it’s beyond the realm of possibility for the world’s most impactful clothing brand – most of our ‘consumer holidays’ were created by the companies out of thin marketing air…but if you really stop to think about how this whole thing came about it’s brilliant.
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Apparently this is the day Nike released the original Air Max 1 in like 1987… I don’t know if anyone who isn’t on Nike’s payroll can actually corroborate this story (kinda like all those ‘Tinker’ stories), but I give it a 60/40 shot that it’s actually true. Nike has probably released a billion pairs of sneakers over the years and in 1987 I doubt records were actually kept in anything but a paper ledger so I’m assuming it’s just a ‘best guess’ kinda date. That’d be like me trying to put a date on the first pair of Jordans I actually bought…I mean I have an idea but there’s no way I could actually put a date on it. ⁣
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I’m really just kind of amazed that Nike was able to create a sneaker holiday out of thin air. They’re so great at storytelling they just told another story that gets us all buying another half a million pairs of Air Maxes like clockwork. Like…man…we just eat this sh!t up. It’s fascinating. ⁣Today is shaping up to be a pretty poor Air Max Day, though…IMO the releases for Air Max Day this year were ‘meh’ and with the economy circling the toilet bowl, I’m kinda glad I won’t be trying to buy anything.⁣
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Next year, hopefully, we get a better lineup (and hopefully we aren’t all scrambling for our jobs and hoarding toilet paper)…⁣