Hypebeast culture is the worst. What kills me about the culture is that artificial constraint that causes reasonably priced items to cost five to ten times their original price due to group-think opinions about how nice a piece looks combined with (in my opinion) unethical practices that street wear brands employ in order to boost the mystique of their clothing. If you want to understand what I am trying to get at, you have to look no further than Supreme. Supreme's popularity is solely based on the fact that a lot of the items they put out are essentially collector's items. Because Supreme restrains the supply to such a degree that clothes literally sell out in under 30 seconds, it creates artificial constraints on the supply of the item. And since the demand is always high, it creates a opportunity for the large number of resellers out there to make insane profit. To me this presents many, many issues. The quick sellout times means that either 1. There is not enough supply to satisfy the insatiable demand of the hypebeast consumer or 2. they are not pricing their items appropriately. Since resellers and brands such as Off-white have proven that no price is to high for a hypebeast that really wants a piece, lets tackle point #1. Brands like supreme and even more mainstream brands such as Adidas and Nike are literally leaving money on the table. Supreme to me is egregious because they will have lines outside of their stores that go around city blocks but not even a fraction of the people standing on that line will be able to get the piece that they want. In addition to this, they have a serious problem with bots with makes it hard for even the dedicated Hypebeast to get a item they really want. These problems can be solved by.....producing more clothes. They can increase production of Yeezys, they can increase productions of box logo hoodies. But they don’t. And they won't. These brands value the hype of an item more than selling it. They value the opportunity to have a customer who will keep coming back for a chance, not even to buy, a CHANCE to buy a sought after item. As unethical and dickish as I think that that is, I cannot blame them. People buy into it. People want to buy bots to have a chance to get a hyped up item. Which is insane to me because not only are you paying the brand, you're paying a bot creator as well just to get a guaranteed chance to give the brand money. People don’t even care to question why is something in such short supply because they are so caught up in excessive consumerism that all this extra effort is almost part of the experience. Having to fight tooth and nail to get the item you want makes it more rewarding it seems, even though you are already giving them money for their product.
People tend to forget that as the consumer, you have the power to influence the brands decisions by voting with your wallet. But that takes willpower to resist the need to get in on the next hot drop. And sadly, it seems that most people are not willing to do that.