Two days before Christmas 2004, Jamaal Johnson stands outside of Niketown near Union Square dressed in pajama pants, LRG jacket and Nike dunks waiting with nearly 300 eager collectors to get inside and purchase the latest in the line of retro Air Jordan’s, the red and black XIII’s. The XIII’s are considered one of the most sought after shoes in the lineage of Jordan’s. After waiting close to five hours in the cold, Johnson finally hustles inside the store and purchases his size 9.5 kicks that haven’t been out on the market since 1998.

Clearly, Johnson is a shoehead.

Johnson, a 23-year-old graduate of the journalism program at SF State, is one of many growing aficionados that buy, sell, collect, fixate, display, and clean the sneakers they buy. Walking into his bedroom is like walking into TRUE and Shoebiz—popular Bay Area sneaker stores. His collection of nearly 50 kicks cost an estimated $3,000 and ranges from Adidas, Nike, Reebok and Air Jordan. Johnson is part of two growing cultures dominating this country and other regions of the world—sneaker culture and consumerism.

Collectors will literally spend hundreds to thousand of dollars on one pair of shoes. A pair of Jordan’s cost an estimated retail price of $130. According to Marketwatch.com, over the past year, March 2006 to March 2007, Nike’s net income rose to $350.8 million from $325.8 million. Future world wide orders for footwear and apparel, scheduled for delivery from March 2006 through July 2007, rose 9 percent from a year ago. While there is no exact number of how many shoeheads exist world-wide, it is safe to say that it is in the millions.

The sneaker culture started roughly twenty years ago when legendary hip hop group, Run DMC, released an ode to foot attire with their smash single, “My Adidas” says “PK,” editor of Critical Sole, an online sneaker magazine in San Francisco. And since then, sneakers have taken on a life of its own connecting people of all sorts.

A mutual friend first introduced Cynthia Bala, 27, to her boyfriend, Emi Sanchez, seven years ago. Bala and Sanchez were wearing the same pair of Jordan’s—black and silver retro V’s.

“I just thought to myself, ‘Oh my God I have to talk to him,” says Bala, a former business student at SF State. “And well, the rest is pretty much history.”

People collect sneakers for various reasons—some for sentimental reasons while others collect just to get noticed. “I guess you can say I am an attention whore,” explains Johnson. “Maybe people will look at [my shoes] and wonder where I got ‘em.”

Whatever reasons shoeheads give for why they collect sneakers, one thing is certain—collecting shoes has caused some financial complexities. Johnson admits that his shoe fetish has prevented him from investing in one of the tools essential to a journalist: a computer. His family constantly criticizes him for not having a computer.

“They think all the shoes [I’ve bought] equal to about five computers,” says Johnson. “Being a writer, they think it’s something you should have.”

However, one of the toughest decisions a collector has to make is whether they want to eat or look fresh. Many fanatics will use grocery money to get an expensive and exclusive pair of shoes. Alex Wang, 30, has skipped meals because he’s wanted to save money to buy shoes. While attending Monte Vista high school in Danville, a suburb east of San Francisco, Wang would freeload fries, pizza, and burgers from his friends and eat the rest of what they couldn’t finish. He bought instant noodles in bulk for discounted prices and wracked up money for the original Jordan XI’s.

“I’ve bummed meals off friends before,” says Wang, who’s also known as Retrokid. “You do what you gotta do [to get shoes]. You just have to man up to get what you want.”

Getting what you want seems to be a common theme in our culture. Is obsessing over obtaining the latest pair of shoes a microcosm of the consumerist American culture that we live in? Many will argue yes. Consumerism, the theory that purchasing material possessions equates to happiness, has many enthusiasts gloating over shoes, waiting in line for several hours outside a sneaker store as Johnson did three years ago.

But living in the MTV generation, where music videos and clothing advertisements are abundant, strongly dictates what types of kicks are hot. A video that aired heavily on MTV and BET was Nelly’s 2002 hit single “Air Force Ones,” an old school Nike basketball shoe. Thanks to the video, AF1’s, as they are commonly referred to, became one of the most popular latest Nike’s. Additionally, it has been said that Nike did not spend any money advertising the shoe because of the song. Soon thereafter the release of the track in 2002, it seemed like every hip-hop artist was rocking the kicks, while many fans mimicked their iconic musicians.

The general public will go out of their way to get that “it” item they may not necessarily need. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2005 consumer units spent on average $46,409. This was 6.9 percent increase from the previous year. The media feeds into the perception of what it is to live a great life showing celebrities driving fancy cars, buying expensive clothing and gadgets. Thus, the media sets the standard of apparent acceptability, almost forcing the public to emulate it. As a result, many splurge on luxuries.

Yet many devotees could care less. They see the Nike swoosh, Adidas three strips or Jumpman emblem as simply part of who they are and what they like—that awe will never go away. But maybe that just goes to show how much the consumerist mentally has consumed us all.

“If you like sneakers, you like sneakers. I mean, look at me. I’m 30,” says Retrokid. “And still love sneakers. I plan on wearing sneakers for the rest of my life.”