AIR JORDAN 4 Black/Cement/Grey BLACK FRIDAY via COUNTERKICKS 03/08/12

[lucky07]

History lesson for some of you young guys: Not ALL of us folded our tongues down

not everyone, but that was the style.. and why Nike did it. Now as far as Jordan's went, I don't remember ANYONE back in the day actually

doing this with Jordans..

"Another favourite. Retroed back in the 90's and still going strong. They feature the Nike Air logo on the back heel instead of the jumpman logo which new versions use. Another unique feature to this shoe is the upside down label on the top of the tongue based on the 80's phenomenon of wearing your tongue down over the shoes making the label the right way around. These shoes have been everywhere with me!"

http://www.sneakerpedia.com/sneakers/5097

 

[casper90403]

Air Jordan's on the tongue is upside down. Thanks for the laugh.

 

[cedb713]

little history lesson for you young guys just getting into J's:

Back in the 80's people folded their tongues down, and they put it like that so you can see the Air Jordan right side up when flipped.

THIS IS INDEED TRUE. THE SAME GOES FOR THE ORANGE HANGTAG THAT ALL THESE YOUNGIN'S SEEM TO ALWAYS HATE ON WHEN THEY SEE SOMEONE ROCKIN' THEM WITH THEIR 4's . THAT WAS HOW WE ROCKED 'EM IN '89 (ALTHOUGH I NEVER DID THE ROLL-DOWN TOUNGE THING MYSELF BACK THEN.)WHY DO U THINK THEY INCLUDE THEM WITH THE SHOES? IT'S AN OPTIONAL THING TO WEAR 'EM OF COURSE, BUT WHY HATE ON THE NEXT MAN FOR WANTING TO ROCK 'EM THE OLD-SCHOOL, NOSTALGIC WAY???

BUT HEY, I GUESS U HAD TO HAVE BEEN BORN WHEN THEY ACTUALLY DROPPED TO UNDERSTAND. HOLLA...



CED B.

 

[nixonjames]

HELP WHAT SHOULD I DO??!!

I cancelled my order with Soleheaven.
Well I sent an email the day that i ordered requesting a cancelled order. The next day i received an email from them saying that it was dispatched, So i emailed them again and I got a reply and they said that since fedex did not pick up my order yet they will cancel it.
I checked on their website and it said it was cancelled. I got a refund yesterday.

However as I was going through my emails, and deleting them and stuff. I looked up the fedex one with my tracking number(it displays the status of the order in hotmail which is pretty neat) and it said that my order was on delivery for today!!


What the heck Am i supposed to do with it? Just keep it? Because I will not be paying to ship it back to them

If you play this right you could get in tight with Dale at Soleheaven I'd bet. Give 'em a call if you get 'em. Be cool about it, what do you wanna do? I don't wanna have to pay to ship 'em back, yadda yadda, I bet that release was crazy blah blah blah, and he'll shoot you out a shipping label and I'd be shocked if he didn't set you up with a future discount as a result of you being cool about it.

THIS IS INDEED TRUE. THE SAME GOES FOR THE ORANGE HANGTAG THAT ALL THESE YOUNGIN'S SEEM TO ALWAYS HATE ON WHEN THEY SEE SOMEONE ROCKIN' THEM WITH THEIR 4's . THAT WAS HOW WE ROCKED 'EM IN '89 (ALTHOUGH I NEVER DID THE ROLL-DOWN TOUNGE THING MYSELF BACK THEN.)WHY DO U THINK THEY INCLUDE THEM WITH THE SHOES? IT'S AN OPTIONAL THING TO WEAR 'EM OF COURSE, BUT WHY HATE ON THE NEXT MAN FOR WANTING TO ROCK 'EM THE OLD-SCHOOL, NOSTAGIC WAY???
BUT HEY, I GUESS U HAD TO HAVE BEEN BORN WHEN THEY ACTUALLY DROPPED TO UNDERSTAND. HOLLA...
CED B.

I've never been one to rock the hang tag but I was going to with my cavs... then my girl clowned me for it so I took it off in shame. But 's cool, my early xmas from her were the these lovely breds. Keep the good ones close.

 

[nixonjames]

added to post above rather than dbl. sry.

 

[cedb713]

It's not just the look because if Spalding made a shoe with the same exact design, they wouldn't cop. ...But, the thing is, you wouldn't either.
People cop because they get attached to brands and what brands stand for. Older generation purists (myself included) like to bash the youngins for the arbitrary nature of their desire for the shoe, but the truth is that we are pretty damn shallow ourselves as well. We are brand ****** too. Sure, over the years, you've developed a deeper relationship with brands and pieces, but when we got into what we got into, we didn't have any more lofty reasoning than today's kids do.
This is what the cool kids in my hood wear. This is what my favorite athlete or musician wears. Over time, you stuck with it and it played a part in the fabric of who you are and the subcultures with which you identify, but that happens over time.
Truth is, people like us are actually the outliers, not the norm. 15-20 years ago, all my friends were either dipped in, or aspiring to be dipped in the Jordans, Air Maxes, and Stadium Plates or Bear Knits, or whatever. Most people don't actually develop a true long-standing relationship with stuff they get into as teenagers though. I'm the only one of my friends who still has hundreds of sneakers, and storage bins full of the same gear we all obsessed over in 1994.
So, people like to play this card to clown the kids today -- and I do it too. But, the truth is we aren't nearly as above the fray as we think we are. And, they aren't as different from us at their age as we like to pretend they are.

AGREED. GOOD POST,FAM! HOLLA...



CED B.

 

[brennanizm]

little history lesson for you young guys just getting into J's:
Back in the 80's people folded their tongues down, and they put it like that so you can see the Air Jordan right side up when flipped.

THIS IS INDEED TRUE. THE SAME GOES FOR THE ORANGE HANGTAG THAT ALL THESE YOUNGIN'S SEEM TO ALWAYS HATE ON WHEN THEY SEE SOMEONE ROCKIN' THEM WITH THEIR 4's . THAT WAS HOW WE ROCKED 'EM IN '89 (ALTHOUGH I NEVER DID THE ROLL-DOWN TOUNGE THING MYSELF BACK THEN.)WHY DO U THINK THEY INCLUDE THEM WITH THE SHOES? IT'S AN OPTIONAL THING TO WEAR 'EM OF COURSE, BUT WHY HATE ON THE NEXT MAN FOR WANTING TO ROCK 'EM THE OLD-SCHOOL, NOSTAGIC WAY???
BUT HEY, I GUESS U HAD TO HAVE BEEN BORN WHEN THEY ACTUALLY DROPPED TO UNDERSTAND. HOLLA...

CED B.

For sure, Ced... Back in the day madd people wore the hangtags on their Jays. I never did, but I always kept my hangtags. You couldn't just throw them away, that was blasphemy back then. When I see an old dude (like myself) wearing retros, and he opts to wear the hangtag like an OG, i gotta salute... Even if I don't wear the hangtag myself. To each their own... I'll never hate on another man's style.

 

[garfield]

It's not just the look because if Spalding made a shoe with the same exact design, they wouldn't cop. ...But, the thing is, you wouldn't either.
People cop because they get attached to brands and what brands stand for. Older generation purists (myself included) like to bash the youngins for the arbitrary nature of their desire for the shoe, but the truth is that we are pretty damn shallow ourselves as well. We are brand ****** too. Sure, over the years, you've developed a deeper relationship with brands and pieces, but when we got into what we got into, we didn't have any more lofty reasoning than today's kids do.
This is what the cool kids in my hood wear. This is what my favorite athlete or musician wears. Over time, you stuck with it and it played a part in the fabric of who you are and the subcultures with which you identify, but that happens over time.
Truth is, people like us are actually the outliers, not the norm. 15-20 years ago, all my friends were either dipped in, or aspiring to be dipped in the Jordans, Air Maxes, and Stadium Plates or Bear Knits, or whatever. Most people don't actually develop a true long-standing relationship with stuff they get into as teenagers though. I'm the only one of my friends who still has hundreds of sneakers, and storage bins full of the same gear we all obsessed over in 1994.
So, people like to play this card to clown the kids today -- and I do it too. But, the truth is we aren't nearly as above the fray as we think we are. And, they aren't as different from us at their age than we like to pretend they are.

Well written, salient points.

That said, this attachment to which you refer (and one that I understand) is what's missing here.  It's not that we don't have our own vices or are "above the fray" necessarily.  And yes, we're all shallow consumers at some point.

BUT I would argue that it goes beyond shallowness for most of us older heads.  Even if the desire for J's in and of itself might seem age agnostic and universally superficial, our top layer is deeply rooted in our desire to return to a time when bills were just a football team to us. When responsibility just meant making sure you took out the trash when mom asked you to. When Christmas was more than just a time to worry about budgeting.  It doesn't make us "better" per se, than the kids.  It's tough to justify rampant consumerism as more than just brand loyalty in this case, but it really does run a little deeper.  

so the TLDR version: our nostalgic ties are what separate us from the young hypebeasts.  That's not a new revelation. But I suppose it's harder for me to understand b/c despite the fact that we weren't completely brand-indoctrinated at that age yet, I also wasn't so fervent to latch onto one trend to the point of ditching logical reasoning.  We all followed as teenagers, but I/we didn't all go this overboard either, to the degree we're seeing now. But maybe that's just me. I didn't go buckwild over Pumps and Starter jackets (over which people were getting killed), etc. 

Other factors such as social media magnify the hype machine as well, so the cultural petri dish is somewhat murkier than ours was. 

 

[bip roberts]

THIS IS INDEED TRUE. THE SAME GOES FOR THE ORANGE HANGTAG THAT ALL THESE YOUNGIN'S SEEM TO ALWAYS HATE ON WHEN THEY SEE SOMEONE ROCKIN' THEM WITH THEIR 4's . THAT WAS HOW WE ROCKED 'EM IN '89 (ALTHOUGH I NEVER DID THE ROLL-DOWN TOUNGE THING MYSELF BACK THEN.)WHY DO U THINK THEY INCLUDE THEM WITH THE SHOES? IT'S AN OPTIONAL THING TO WEAR 'EM OF COURSE, BUT WHY HATE ON THE NEXT MAN FOR WANTING TO ROCK 'EM THE OLD-SCHOOL, NOSTALGIC WAY???
BUT HEY, I GUESS U HAD TO HAVE BEEN BORN WHEN THEY ACTUALLY DROPPED TO UNDERSTAND. HOLLA...
CED B.

The roots of the style were two-fold, and almost for opposite reasons.

One, would be to show people that you were sporting something new, that we were always fresh. The modern slang equivalent is "popping tags." ...Taken literally, it means that everything you are wearing is brand new. (I feel like I'm on RapGenius now.)

So, that was a big thing behind it. Don't forget keeping the hangtags on your Game college hats too. Word to Another Bad Creation!!

But, the other side of the leaving the tags on thing (not with sneakers necessarily) would be that people would buy things, wear them, and return them after wearing them once. ...Women do this with dresses a lot too, but they hide the tag instead of displaying it.

 

[hypebeast5]

Maybe dude was confused cause the tag of the Vs is right side up

 

[diakonos]

It's not just the look because if Spalding made a shoe with the same exact design, they wouldn't cop. ...But, the thing is, you wouldn't either.
People cop because they get attached to brands and what brands stand for. Older generation purists (myself included) like to bash the youngins for the arbitrary nature of their desire for the shoe, but the truth is that we are pretty damn shallow ourselves as well. We are brand ****** too. Sure, over the years, you've developed a deeper relationship with brands and pieces, but when we got into what we got into, we didn't have any more lofty reasoning than today's kids do.
This is what the cool kids in my hood wear. This is what my favorite athlete or musician wears. Over time, you stuck with it and it played a part in the fabric of who you are and the subcultures with which you identify, but that happens over time.
Truth is, people like us are actually the outliers, not the norm. 15-20 years ago, all my friends were either dipped in, or aspiring to be dipped in the Jordans, Air Maxes, and Stadium Plates or Bear Knits, or whatever. Most people don't actually develop a true long-standing relationship with stuff they get into as teenagers though. I'm the only one of my friends who still has hundreds of sneakers, and storage bins full of the same gear we all obsessed over in 1994.
So, people like to play this card to clown the kids today -- and I do it too. But, the truth is we aren't nearly as above the fray as we think we are. And, they aren't as different from us at their age than we like to pretend they are.

Repped.

I think you bring up some really good points. While my member status says I recently joined, I've known about Niketalk for many years. I don't read every single thread or care to comment on every single thread either, but in general Niketalk is (what I think) the best forum to gain knowledge about all kinds of kicks, but especially Jordans. I would never consider myself OG since I've collected kicks off and on in my life, but I think we all know that on these forums there needs to be a certain amount of etiquette involved. At times there a lot of "hate" from OG members when a youngster posts a "dumb" question/comment where he clearly didn't think about it before he posted it. And there's a lot of "hate" from youngsters when OG members act all high and mighty around them.

Reality is .... youngsters wear/hype/know about Jordans cause they see Kanye West or Jay-Z wearing some retros. OGs wear Jordans... well because Jordan wore them when we watched him in the NBA making all those game winning shots and winning championships. It isn't youngsters fault for being born after MJ retired and not being able to see The Greatest of All Time, but as older Niketalk members we should have a little more patience with the youngsters than just blast them out of NT. There will always be DBs and Trolls around any forum where I don't mind if they get blasted, but sometimes there are some innocent members who just made a mistake when they posted.

I think it would just be better if the youngsters get educated by older members instead of blasted, but ALSO youngsters need to read through threads before posting their questions. Technology and Social media has gotten so crazy with instant information these days that trying to read yesterday's news is already buried so deep who the hell would want to try to find it.

What happened to the good ole days before Internet or Cellphones... jk

 

[green rhino123]

The topic isn't HOW MANY PEOPLE DID IT, but why the shoes are like that. It was there upside down so it could be read when it was flipped upside down.

we've all heard the folded over tongue story a million times over the years (years mainly since retros started being made)
to justify the upside down logo

but i never did it & i can not remember anyone doing it with the originals...

in fact, how would that even work? seriously...

wouldn't you have to anchor the tongue down with the shoelaces or something,
cause i've tried "flipping the tongue" - and it just pops right back up to the normal position....everytime

call me ******ed if you must (and the tongues were even shorter on the ogs making it even more difficult to pull off,
no way it could be done on an air flight 89 for example)


what i'm saying is I THINK IT'S A MYTH

(some online sneaker encyclopedia don't impress me, a lot of us on NT could school some of the authors on those sites)

ps - i'm not arguing with anyone, i honestly want an explanation if possible
set me straight on this

 

[coldcity]

it was alot easier with v's rhino

 

[Sneaker P]

It's not just the look because if Spalding made a shoe with the same exact design, they wouldn't cop. ...But, the thing is, you wouldn't either.
People cop because they get attached to brands and what brands stand for. Older generation purists (myself included) like to bash the youngins for the arbitrary nature of their desire for the shoe, but the truth is that we are pretty damn shallow ourselves as well. We are brand ****** too. Sure, over the years, you've developed a deeper relationship with brands and pieces, but when we got into what we got into, we didn't have any more lofty reasoning than today's kids do.
This is what the cool kids in my hood wear. This is what my favorite athlete or musician wears. Over time, you stuck with it and it played a part in the fabric of who you are and the subcultures with which you identify, but that happens over time.
Truth is, people like us are actually the outliers, not the norm. 15-20 years ago, all my friends were either dipped in, or aspiring to be dipped in the Jordans, Air Maxes, and Stadium Plates or Bear Knits, or whatever. Most people don't actually develop a true long-standing relationship with stuff they get into as teenagers though. I'm the only one of my friends who still has hundreds of sneakers, and storage bins full of the same gear we all obsessed over in 1994.
So, people like to play this card to clown the kids today -- and I do it too. But, the truth is we aren't nearly as above the fray as we think we are. And, they aren't as different from us at their age as we like to pretend they are.

For me it is a combination of look and brand attachment. As for design, what other shoe can look good 20+ years after its original release. Definitely growing up in the 90s JB was everywhere so associating with him and his brand was a big deal. I even used to rock his cologne.

 

[garfield]

Related question/counterpoint --
Do you find it more "acceptable" for the younger generation to go crazy over the 'Bron, KD, or Kobe releases, given that these are athletes more of their era?
BTW, marketing has also come a long way in the past 20-25 years. Who is to say that if all the technological tools that helped allow the sneaker subculture to grow to what it is today had existed in the era of the original Jordan releases that the climate at that time wouldn't have changed vastly? ...People were already getting robbed on the regular for their Jordans in that era.
...You know, if you put out a ton of cops on a busy stretch of highway, you'll catch a lot of speeders. If, the next day, you only put out a few, you will only catch a few, But, from that, you'd be wrong to conclude that the number of speeders changed significantly from one day to the next. People find what they look for. And, if you want to look for "beasting" today, you'll definitely find it. But, you then compare it to past days as if none of this ever happened before because that's not how we remember it. The thing is, we weren't making a conscious effort to look for it either... but you'd be crazy to deny that a whole bunch of kids of our generation also only wanted the new Jordans because they were "cool.".
So, you don't find what you don't look for - that shouldn't be confused with the actual reality of the situation though.

To be clear, I'm not so naive as to think that this sort of cultural windfall hasn't happened before, especially during our day.  

I'm speaking specifically about Jordans in this case though. And yes, they were "cool" because MJ was doing amazing things before our very eyes.  Jay Z and Will Smith rocked em, and that certainly magnified it. I just don't understand why they're so cool to kids now.

To answer your question, to me it's not a matter of "acceptable" when it comes to kids beasting on Lebrons and KDIV's and Kobe's, but i DO understand that rationale more.  Nike markets the shoes better than ever, and these athletes are making history before their very eyes.  So I won't really question that. Just Jordans.  

Bear in mind this was more curiosity than anything.  This was never about making some grand delineation    between our 12 year old selves and the current ones.  Just the particular attachment to J's for the current kids.  

 

[green rhino123]

Maybe dude was confused cause the tag of the Vs is right side up

you're right about the retros
but please correct me if i'm wrong...like someone else said - didn't the original 5's have it upside down just like the original (& retro) 4s?

 

[lucky07]

we've all heard the folded over tongue story a million times over the years (years mainly since retros started being made)
to justify the upside down logo
but i never did it & i can not remember anyone doing it with the originals...
in fact, how would that even work? seriously...
wouldn't you have to anchor the tongue down with the shoelaces or something,
cause i've tried "flipping the tongue" - and it just pops right back up to the normal position....everytime
call me ******ed if you must (and the tongues were even shorter on the ogs making it even more difficult to pull off,
no way it could be done on an air flight 89 for example)
what i'm saying is I THINK IT'S A MYTH
(some online sneaker encyclopedia don't impress me, a lot of us on NT could school some of the authors on those sites)
ps - i'm not arguing with anyone, i honestly want an explanation if possible
set me straight on this

I agree! I can't remember anyone actually doing it either on these.. I never rocked mine that way (or with the hang tag). What I can remember is people

folding the tongue over to show off the Air Jordan name as being flipped and you could read it..

 

[diakonos]

I agree! I can't remember anyone actually doing it either on these.. I never rocked mine that way (or with the hang tag). What I can remember is people
folding the tongue over to show off the Air Jordan name as being flipped and you could read it..

...as if people didn't know they were AJs by just looking at the whole shoe or by the logo?

 

[knightlovesqueen]

IM AN OLDER HEAD BUT DONT THROW THE TERM OG AROUND.

I'LL TELL U THIS THOUGH WHETER YOUNG OR OLD, WHY THE F ARE SOME PEOPLE SAYING "WE"; YOU GOT A FROG IN YOU BACK POCKET FAMBS??????


DI QUE WE LIKE YOU ON SOME COLLECTIVIST BULL CRAP

 

[otakuant]

Some of you guys are way too harsh.

@Anderson: I'm in Cali.

Btw, does anyone know what type of packaging DSG uses to ship? Do they double box, etc?

 

dsg does a good job man, double boxed nicely packaged

Thanks.

 

[Sneaker P]

To be clear, I'm not so naive as to think that this sort of cultural windfall hasn't happened before, especially during our day.  

I'm speaking specifically about Jordans in this case though. And yes, they were "cool" because MJ was doing amazing things before our very eyes.  Jay Z and Will Smith rocked em, and that certainly magnified it. I just don't understand why they're so cool to kids now.

To answer your question, to me it's not a matter of "acceptable" when it comes to kids beasting on Lebrons and KDIV's and Kobe's, but i DO understand that rationale more.  Nike markets the shoes better than ever, and these athletes are making history before their very eyes.  So I won't really question that. Just Jordans.  

Bear in mind this was more curiosity than anything.  This was never about making some grand delineation
 
 between our 12 year old selves and the current ones.  Just the particular attachment to J's for the current kids.  

Preach! This is exactly the way I think, call me a hater if you want, but I just don't see why current kids are heavily into J's. No emotional attachment with MJ and his playing days.

 

[brennanizm]

I remember dudes sticking hot dogs through the tongue holes on their Air Jordan VI back in the day... That was just the way we rocked em back then. Can't wait for the Maroon VI to drop, I'll probably switch it up with Lil Smokies in 2013. I'm not much on HotDogs like I was back in the early 90s. Unless it's a Chicago Dog... Celery Salt, Sport Peppers...

 

[diakonos]

I remember dudes sticking hot dogs through the tongue holes on their Air Jordan VI back in the day... That was just the way we rocked em back then.

Got a pic?

 

[cedb713]

The roots of the style were two-fold, and almost for opposite reasons.
One, would be to show people that you were sporting something new, that we were always fresh. The modern slang equivalent is "popping tags." ...Taken literally, it means that everything you are wearing is brand new. (I feel like I'm on RapGenius now.)
So, that was a big thing behind it. Don't forget keeping the hangtags on your Game college hats too. Word to Another Bad Creation!!
But, the other side of the leaving the tags on thing (not with sneakers necessarily) would be that people would buy things, wear them, and return them after wearing them once. ...Women do this with dresses a lot too, but they hide the tag instead of displaying it.

AGREED. GOOD POST,FAM. MAN, U TAKIN' ME BACK WITH THE "G" TAGS ON THE GAME COLLEGE SNAPBACKS,LOL! GOOD MEMEORIES.... HOLLA!



CED B.

 

[cedb713]

For sure, Ced... Back in the day madd people wore the hangtags on their Jays. I never did, but I always kept my hangtags. You couldn't just throw them away, that was blasphemy back then. When I see an old dude (like myself) wearing retros, and he opts to wear the hangtag like an OG, i gotta salute... Even if I don't wear the hangtag myself. To each their own... I'll never hate on another man's style.

FROM ONE OG SNEAKER CONNOISSUER TO ANOTHER, I SALUTE U,FAM. WORD TO '89...HOLLA!



CED B.