Converse wearers bond together

Cody Nabours UCSD Guardian

It seems that everywhere you turn these days you see them. Clean, smooth white rubber, unmarred inky black canvas and the unmistakable black stripe at the toecap; these are the Converse of the poseur. No white circle with the signature blue star, for the poseur will only wear low-tops. And clean, like the teeth of daytime television, for the poseur feeds exclusively upon the sterilized, harajuku model of rebellion consumerism-meets-high-fashion. The days of the Converse as an outward sign of coolness are over. The Converse Chuck Taylor is ubiquitous and universal and is once again the staple of the American youth, the shoe for every man, woman and child of today.

Once, not too long ago, if two wearing Converse happened to come across each other in public, an instinctive bond was formed, an unspoken understanding from one to the other of mutual respect and recognized coolness. Regardless of race, gender, relative attractiveness, shoe style and color, the Converse was a badge of allegiance to the underground world of marijuana and rock ’n’ roll, where ignorance was rewarded with sarcasm and pop culture was appreciated as art or irony, never entertainment. But no longer. Every good underground society of like-minded cool people eventually becomes too cool for its own good and makes a blip on the screens of the mainstream, and suddenly its members can no longer tell their own from the masses of people just realizing how cool it is to look like them.

This poses a problem to those who once proudly wore Converse, for it forces the pop-culture ethos of, “If it’s popular, it fucking sucks,” to turn its hateful gaze toward the shoe of punk rock, the shoe that so famously tapped out the count-in in the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video, the shoe that always split on the sides just when it got comfortable, that got torn from repeated ollies, that induced the feeling of floating after a day’s work in clunky regular shoes. Converse shoes are too dear to be cast aside because of some petty hatred of the mainstream; there have been too many memories soaked into their canvas, and their history is too big to bury. Let those who wore Converse continue to wear Converse, and teach each other how to spot the phonies in their midst. Remember, people that wear Converse are no longer automatically all right, for not all of them truly respect the institution of the shoe, the history that lives on in each worn down, torn up, sweaty pair of Converse.

A bassist I know, a follower of the punk-rock school, and, until recently, a Converse owner (he has chosen to follow his values, history be damned), recounts the purchase of his first pair. Taken by his mother to the store, he was allowed to purchase either black high-tops or white high-tops, the only “true” Converse, since they were the only colors available when she was a girl. More colors were implemented in 1966, one year shy of the shoe’s 50th anniversary, the same year as Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, possibly the best rock ’n’ roll album of all time. Before that, it had been the sneaker of the American youth (at least according to “Happy Days”), and the all-white variety became immensely popular with American soldiers during World War II. Let’s not forget that people wore these things for basketball, either. Since then, iconic, inarguably cool Americans have worn the sneakers. (A random sampling includes Ferris Bueller, Snoop Dogg, Bruce Springsteen, and, oh, Marty McFly.) When his mother bought my budding punk friend his first Converse, the torch was passed; nearly a century of American history, the lives of generations of Americans, sat there in a box thick with the stinging odor of fresh, virgin rubber. Converse are the Adidas for the white folk. This history cannot be taken lightly. Much like the Chevy Corvette or the Fender Stratocaster, Converse shoes are wholly, irrevocably, quintessentially American, and I hope, at the very least, all the recent initiates to the shoe (not the cool) can understand and respect that.

However, much like the “pre-CBS buyout” Stratocaster that so aroused Wayne Campbell of “Wayne’s World” (a Converse wearer) are the torn-up Converse that sit on your feet — that is, if you got them before July 2003, when the company was swallowed by the Nike-East India Company. But by the time of Converse’s bankruptcy two years earlier, the shoes were being made in the United States no longer, but rather in factories throughout Asia. Appreciate the shoes on your feet, because if you buy new Converse, you are placing money in the hands of the Great Satan. When you see the torn Chuck Taylors on the feet of your fellows, know that the bond you share is that of the final generation of Converse-wearers uncorrupted by corporate-sponsored cool. All those who wear fresh-out-of-the-box, squeaky clean Converse, they are the automatons, the salesmen for American imperialism.

With the image of Converse, Nike has concocted the identity of rebellion to sell to the masses, based on nearly a century of classic American cool. The problem, which is always (or never) forgotten by the Freon-blooded corporate types, is that once you market the underground to the masses, it can no longer be cool. This is the vicious cycle that keeps culture moving forward like a shark. Because of it, it is no longer all right to purchase Converse, for the same reason I hate anyone who eats McDonald's. The great sneaker of the 20th century sits on your feet today and is the link to the legacy of that generation, a legacy we must all remember. Perhaps another generation will make the shoe cool again in eight to 10 years, but most likely it will be lost to the history books, a victim of Nike’s evil powers.

Don’t mind the poseurs who wear brand-new Converse — they have already been lost to the dark side. Just be sure to keep your distance. You, wear your Converse with pride: the Jack Purcells (my very first Converse), the Chuck Taylors, the Dr. Js and the One Stars. Rock the 20th century lest we forget all about it. But 21st century Converse, get outta my house; this is no bordello.