Can someone say 5 Months? I surely can, because that is exactly what today is, the 5th month of Wear Your Kicks Wednesday (#WYKW) and Kickin’ It With Def Pen: Wear Your Kicks Pt. 20.
This is our final installment, sort of like a season finale so to speak, don’t worry though we will be back. Bigger and better, for you guys of course. As of right now I can’t really speak on what we are doing next with the Wear Your Kicks segments but we are only improving, believe that.
Last weeks Kickin’ It With Def Pen featured a very informative story in the world of sneakers accordion to Ant Sheppard and we followed that up with our weekly recap #WYKW Recap (7/23/30). So check out those two just to catch up on everything you guys have missed.
Now to get into this week. It is only right I end things off the right way, I won’t even spoil it….
I know what you guys are thinking, “Why these 3 specific sneakers?”
Well there was a point in time where I was going crazy trying to cop any and everything sneaker that was releasing. I mean when you living at your moms crib not really paying any bills, why not?!.
Anyways, so the real correlation between these three are that they were all purchased through the RSVP system that Nike Store was implementing for their releases. Yes that is right, I won the RSVP for not 1, not 2, not 3..lol (little LeBron joke).Actually I won the RSVP for more kicks now that I think about it. We’ll talk about that in a bit.
So when the Nike KD IV ‘Scoring Title’ was set to drop I was going crazy trying to figure out how I was going to get me a pair. Living in the part of New Jersey I was in I just knew it would be almost impossible. I also wasn’t trying to do no crazy camping for a $95 sneaker, even though I played myself when the ‘Nerf’ color way was dropping and I just walked pass the line which only had about 6 people at the time, SMH.
The newly implemented RSVP system was out and I just had no luck, putting tweet notifications for Nike Store to go straight to my text messages wasn’t working because there was a slight delay with receiving them. This is how I missed the KD4 “Aunt Pearl’ but we won’t speak on that. So while doing my usual daily routine of tweeting I ended up having a conversation with the homie Roy (@RoySwagOTM) put me on to what I like to call a cheat code with the RSVP.
Since my method wasn’t working I was all ears. He told me about this app called Tweet Fire, and that is exactly what it did Tweet at fire speeds, cheesy I know but it worked.
The trick was to have your DM for the RSVP response to Nike which included your name, shoe size and a hashtag which was provided the day of the RSVP when the tweet went out. That was the challenge, tweeting the DM as fast as possible with providing the correct hashtag. Thanks to Roy, I was able to score my pair of ‘Scoring Titles’ with NO HASSLE.
At this point I was RSVP’n for EVERY RELEASE even if I wasn’t trying to purchase I did it anyway, I felt like the man. That year (2012) was the Olympics I believe and KD’s signature shoe which I might add was very popular this time around, arguably more than Kobe’s and LeBrons Signature shoes.
So with the Olympics taking place, Team USA won the Gold medal and that led to Nike releasing a special edition Nike KD IV ‘Gold Medal’. Like all KD4s just about I had to have them. That ‘Metallic Gold’ with the Red and Blue to represent USA just made them stand out to me simply because it went away from the usual white upper we would see on USA themed shoes. Also the laces being purple was dope because it solidified the whole ‘Gold Medal’ theme because the necklace used to hold the Olympic Gold Medal is purple. Clever move Nike.
Me getting these was all thanks to the RSVP “cheat code”. Another color way people had to go through a lot for I got with NO HASSLE.
The last sneaker which I must say I didn’t really plan to get due to the fact I missed out on every one of its kind prior to was the Air Jordan 9 “Doernbecher”. I could have gotten the DB4s but being lazy I missed out on those. I respect what the whole Doernbecher collection is about, having kids from the Doernbecher Children’s Hospital have the chance to design their own shoes is dope.
So the DB 9 was designed by Oswaldo Jimenez and he added feather-like graphics throughout the mudguard which correlates with the theme of the shoes, also adding his lucky number “17? on the back. September 13th which is his birthday is seen behind the tongue and lastly “Pollito” is on the front of the tongue which means “little chicken”.
I had originally missed the first round of RSVPs but I wasn’t too bummed because the ‘Motorboat Jones’ Air Jordan 9 was releasing around that time and I really wanted those. How ironic I missed out on both at the time until while I was eating at Millers Ale House out in Long Island I got a notification of another RSVP for the DB9s due to people not picking their pairs up. HAAA boy was I hype, but I was about to spend money for the night and my pockets were looking funny in the light.
So I prepped up my DM (direct message) to Nike Store for the RSVP and told myself if I win I will just over draft, f*ck it, Kicks Ova Everything. As you can see I have them so I won and yes I did over draft, oh well it was worth it to me.
Well folks, I just want to thank you all for taking the time out to read each weekly installment to Kickin’ It With Def Pen: Wear Your Kicks. I hope you enjoy them and I look forward to showing you guys what’s next. To all the people who provided features and shared your passion you have for sneakers like we do over here at Def Pen Radio you guys are appreciated as well.
Continue to be cool how y’all be cool and I’ll do the same. Remember to Wear Your Kicks every Wednesday though cause the hashtag doesn’t stop and see y’all Tuesday for the recap, peace.
