 So I just got this pair of shoes the other day and I was so excited and I started to think about it. These literally have zero value, but I also started to think about it. When you're a sneaker head, sometimes you just gotta buy the shoe. So in today's video, I'm gonna be explaining to you guys why sometimes it's okay to buy a pair of shoes that has zero resale value. And if you didn't know by now, my name is DJ and this is the DNA show. On this channel, I love talking about sneakers and especially giving you guys my insight on shoes over all the things I've learned over the past 15 plus years. So if you haven't already, consider subscribing and joining the fam. We're on the road to a million subscribers and you could be the next one to get us there. So first things first, you have to have an understanding when you're purchasing a pair of shoes. What is the goal when you're buying the shoes? Are you buying the pair of shoes to flex? Are you buying the pair of shoes to add another addition to your collection that's gonna complete a set of different things? Are you buying it for everyday use? Are you buying it because you're trying to flip it and make some extra money? There's so many different reasons why people buy sneaker. And I know in current time, as a lot of sneaker heads like to do, they like to talk about the resale value and what the shoes are worth and if they're able to buy it for retail or below retail and then reseller it for more money and what the value is, all the things, make the flip and do all the yada yada. But there's a lot of collectors out there that literally just wanna have their pair of shoes for their collections. And they may have a lot of memories behind that shoe that drives them to wanna go after that shoe again when it may retro or something like that. And for those that don't know, when a shoe retros basically in that sense, it just means the shoe came out in the past, they decided to re-release it again years later and then they give the opportunity for people to buy that shoe again. And for us as sneaker heads, we might have some type of childhood memory or something like that with the original version. And now we see the retro version coming out, you know, 10 year anniversary, whatever it may be. And you're like, yo, I'm an adult now, I can afford it. I wanna add these to my collection. I have so many memories from the past. This just made so much sense. I have to cop the shoe. And I think this is exactly where this pair falls into play right here. I used to have these back in high school and I used to wear these as my foot was transitioning. Oh, my bad, you guys. I haven't shown the shoe yet. Maybe we should do that first. We have a all white Air Force One, black bottom, black swoosh, black sock liner. Very simple, white and black colorway. But why is this shoe so important to me? And why was I willing to take that L or whatever you may wanna call it to have this shoe and be able to add it into my collection? Because I know there's no resell value when it comes to this shoe, but there's so much sentimental value when it comes to this shoe for somebody like me. So for those that don't know, I've been in the shoe game for many a years and I remember vividly back in high school, my foot was changing size oh so rapidly. I came into high school wearing a size 10 and a half and by the time I was a sophomore in high school, I was wearing a size 13. I was struggling trying to understand what my size shoe was and I still wanted to have shoes in my collection. I was rocking J's and forces and different stuff and trying to find affordable options and even buying you know, shell toes and different things because I knew my foot was changing so much. It was hard to be like oh, I'm gonna put all this money into a pair of shoes and then I can't fit it a couple months later. So it was definitely kind of that struggle just growing up, trying to find ways to hustle and make money so I can afford my sneakers and all the different things. But I remember vividly I had a size 13 of this shoe right here. They were sitting at like champs or footlocker or something like that. They're available on the shelves. I was like these are gonna be great because I can wear these with all my outfits. It's gonna make so much sense, very neutral. I can rock these throughout the entire year. You can't go wrong with some all white Air Force ones but it's got a black bottom so it's gonna make the shoe even better because if it gets dirty, I don't really have to worry about it as much. You know just all those little things that made me justify like why I needed this pair of shoes in my collection. So as me a young 15, 16 year old kid back in high school, this shoe right here was just a perfect everyday sneaker for me and I loved them. But you know how it goes. You're young in high school. You're still riding bikes, having fun, kicking in what your homies going to the little house parties doing all the things. Next thing you know, over time, you wear the shoe so much it started to get beaten up and they started to get broken down. You still clean them up but they just don't look the same as they did back when you first got them fresh out the box. So eventually I ended up retiring this pair from my collection and honestly, I don't know what I did with the pair of shoes. I might have took them to like Buffalo Exchange or something and tried to get, you know how they give you the little credit at Buffalo and next thing you know, they give you like $17 or something and they use that towards something else and they're like damn well it wasn't even really worth it but it was like, I'll take what I can get cause I'm young and broken, I'm 15 years old. Like you guys all remember those times, right? So I think, I'm assuming that's probably what I did cause I definitely used to sell a lot of things at Buffalo Exchange when it came to clothing and sneakers and different stuff like down on Facebook. But I don't know either way, I remember I got rid of them somehow. I don't know how I got rid of them but I don't have them anymore to say the least. All this time goes by and I just remember having all these memories and just so much nostalgia for me having that shoe in my collection and wearing it and just feeling fresh and all this stuff and I remember there's actually a picture of me wearing them on photo day for football pictures back sophomore year of high school. I remember that, hopefully I have it here somewhere on the screen for you guys to see. That's me, young DJ way back in the day. But yeah, anyways, just all that time goes by and I am literally at the employee store. I see the shoe and I'm like, bro, I have to get these, no doubt about it. Like all you guys know that shop at the ES like you get the discount too, so it makes so much sense. I ended up seeing them there and I was like, bruh at this price, you can't go wrong with this price at all, it's an all-white Air Force one. But for me, so much memory and nostalgia and everything like that for myself, you can look at this shoe and be like, oh, this is just an everyday Air Force one. I got shoes in my collection back here that are worth way more than these, but these mean way more to me. So to be able to find these, get them at a discounted price, add them into the collection, definitely gonna add these into my rotation this fall. Excited about that. It was just an exciting moment and I think this is a great opportunity for me to share with you guys, hopefully you guys were able to pick some of those dimes that I was dropping throughout the video, just saying like, buy what you like, understand that you don't need to always buy with the intent of the resale and the long haul. Create those memories with the sneakers and then when they retro again, continue to live that life of that sneaker and then, you know, get that new pair and freshen up and get right and stay icy and stay fresh. You don't always have to worry about the resale value is what I'm saying. Now again, there is gonna be a fine line between that because some people are like, oh, I just buy bricks only, dead of that with two. Great, that's not a problem. Again, buy whatever you wanna buy and buy what you like because it's your money. I'm not exactly telling you what to do with your money. I'm just suggesting, based off of what I've learned over the years, you have to have that fine balance of shoes that you're willing to pay, you know, retail price or whatever, they're sitting on shelves at the local Foot Locker, but you have so many memories with that shoe and you wanna get them back in your collection or you might be willing to pay the extra $30 over retail and it's not really reselling for nothing but nobody really cares about the shoe at the same time so you can get it for just a little bit slightly over that retail value, but it means so much to you when you finally add it to your collection. There's a lot of shoes that are like that and trust me, if you guys wanna hear more stories, I have a lot of shoes that I've gotten for really good deals that I've been able to bring back memories and different stuff like that, but either way, just understand that when you're buying shoes, you definitely wanna have that intent like, okay, am I making a wise investment on the sneakers that I'm purchasing? Do these have the chance to rise in value and do they have the chance to be able to be an opportunity for me to trade that sneaker for another sneaker or is somebody else gonna covet that sneaker the way I covet the sneaker? There's a lot of different things that come to that. Now when it comes to a basic black and white Air Force One, not everybody's gonna be like, oh, bro, I gotta have those black and white forces. But if you got like, oh, I got this retro four infrared colorway, like, you know, okay, it's flipping for a little bit, people enjoy that. There's no way the shoe's just gonna go crazy down in value and you're gonna just lose a bunch of money, right? But I think at the end of the day, again, you have to have a healthy balance because if you don't, all you're gonna be doing is chasing the hype, trying to get the ladies in greatest shoe that everybody else wants, paying the resell value, all the different stuff, like following the trends and doing the thing. That's cool and all. That's great. That's a part of the game. I understand it. And sometimes again, you may like a shoe that you're like, this shoe is actually dope. And unfortunately, everybody else likes it too. It happens often. So it doesn't make you a hype beast for liking a shoe that's dope. If the shoe is dope, the shoe is dope. And trust me, there's a lot of shoes that are worth a lot of money that aren't that dope. And that's also perfectly fine because it may be a shoe that I don't like, but somebody else may like. And that's the best part about the shoe game, right? We get to buy what we like. Having that understanding and knowing the balance of like, okay, yes, I'm going after all the bangers. I want the Travis Scott's. I don't want the Fragments and all the different things and the retro's and the new Yeezy drops and all the things, everybody wants all that stuff. But you gotta get the shoes that's like, these are great everyday shoes. I can make cool memories in these. These got nostalgic vibes to me, especially if you're an older collector or older head. You know exactly what I mean. You start to see shoes retro again. And it could even be a Jordan retro model. You know, we see the Cardinal 7s are supposed to be coming out again. A lot of people have different memories, not only from the last retro, but the retro before that one. And some people, even with the OG, there's a lot of things like that that it's like, it's so much nostalgia behind it. And that's the part of the game that I think a lot of people don't talk about as much, right? We want to talk about still grabbing those pairs of sneakers for our collection and enjoying our collection and enjoying the stories and the memories, even if the shoe isn't worth a lot of money, still able to add those to the collection. So I would say personally, I always go for like, maybe like 10 or 20% of my collection of like, all right, yeah, I don't care if it's like a brick or whatever, like it don't matter because I want this for my collection. I don't care at all. Boom, I'm grabbing it. Now, obviously I'm gonna make smart decisions on the other pairs because that's gonna play the vast majority of the value of the collection. What I can use that as an asset later making wiser decisions with putting that into properties, different things like that. And trust me, I don't just buy any shoe to say I have it and all the other stuff. Like I buy all the shoes that I like, I like the complete sets that I like. And as you guys know, I'm not really a huge fan of the Adidas Yeezys and all that stuff. And I don't like every single Jordan model and I want to have them all. Like again, you guys know, I don't like the Shatter Backbore ones. Like that's the number one thing that people, oh, you don't like that. Like it's fine. I don't like the shoe. I've had it before. I tried it, just didn't like it. So I sold them, I got rid of them. I traded them. It's just what it is. Like, so if you understand your identity and understand who you are as a collector and the stuff that you like to collect and the items that you like to have and knowing that, but at the same time, still saying, all right, words back to my humble days when I was first getting started and those sneakers that got me into it and everything. Like, still have respect for those type of shoes because trust me, a lot of people that's watching these videos and a lot of people that are making these videos had to start somewhere, right? So don't forget that and don't forget those days because we always are going after those grills and we see the crazy expensive sneakers and all the lifetime achievement awards when it comes to collecting shoes and all this random stuff that we're seeing online when it's just hype, hype, hype, hype, hype. So hopefully this video can just kind of bring us back down for a second and understand like a simple pair of white and black Air Force ones went so far for me back when I was a young kid in high school and it's crazy to reflect and see this pair of shoes right here now in my current time, in my current state of life and getting a fresh pair and what the memories I can make in this pair of shoes all these years later, right? So I think to me it's super dope how sneakers can tell stories and you can tell your stories through your sneakers as well. And we might both have the same exact pair of shoes and have two completely different life stories from this sneaker. And that's the thing I love about shoes and all this stuff. So hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. I'm sorry if you didn't, but either way I'm just telling my story about sneakers and why I think it's very important to steal, you know, go after those coveted shoes that you may like that everybody else doesn't like or it doesn't have the resale value and different stuff like that because that also is a part of the shoe game that makes things fun. So I appreciate you guys as always. If you guys want to see any other stories or me just talking about recent pickups that may be like this that may not get a lot of views on YouTube and stuff which is fine with me because I think things like this definitely need to be shared on YouTube a little bit more often. Yo, if you enjoyed this video and want to grow your collection or make extra money on the side, I built a VIP mastermind that will teach you everything that I've learned about growing my sneaker collection over the past 15 years. This will also give you access to the DNA fam in my VIP community where we talk about investing outside of sneakers. And don't worry, if you don't plan on joining the VIP community, it's okay. I'll also set up a private DNA fam community that gives you access to all the behind the scenes looks from the studio and multiple chances to win free sneakers and gear from weekly and monthly challenges. So all you need to do is click on the link down below in the description or the first link pinned in the comment section. That will get you set up and into the community. I'm excited to see you guys on the inside.