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Opening Christmas presents was so much better when I was a kid. A toy car worth a couple bucks could send me over the edge, holding it up with both hands to present it like a championship trophy while circling around the room. Now, after 26 dulling years, it’s hard to get that worked up about anything. But this Christmas, equally and/or more grown people made those incoherent noises and twisted faces children make somewhere in between a smile and a good cry — there’s a reason they call it unADULTerated joy — when they unwrapped their very own Yeezy Boosts.
The practically impossible-to-get-without-paying-absurd-resale-prices shoes were a popular gift given to unsuspecting sneakerheads this year (those tweeting “Fuck Adidas” just a couple weeks ago were no doubt singing a different carol on Christmas). We’ve composed entire guides on how mortals have managed to buy Boosts, but there’s no real way to guarantee you get a pair besides dropping huge amounts of cash on the second-hand market.
Thank you @wex1200 @kanyewest and @adidasoriginals for making this possible. pic.twitter.com/jIxwnM9nuv
— Mike Lepkoske (@PhatL7) December 25, 2016
Adults rarely exhibit kid-on-Christmas levels of joy, but they do in these videos. And it’s a joy apparently untarnished by Kanye’s recently bleached legacy. His meeting with the President-Elect was hard to watch for some of Kanye’s biggest stans, especially in light of his comments that if he had voted, it would have been for the Donald.
Verbal backlash and critical think pieces ensued, but what I was really waiting on was a rebuke from the sneakerhead community, those snapping up his wares at unpresidented rates. The customers who relished burning and knifing their New Balances when the company came out as pro-Trump? They never showed. I reached out to retailers selling the most recent release of Yeezy Boosts to find out if Kanye’s political interests had influenced sales; most didn’t respond and those who did declined to share numbers. All we really need to know is that they completely sold out, like they always do.
Controversy aside, watching the videos of people unwrapping their Yeezys was all the Christmas cheer I needed. Just look at this guy who received the shoes after all three of his friends pitched in to buy them for him. His hands are shaking and he looks and sounds like he’s about to shed some tears of joy. This is a portrait of what Christmas is all about.
His 3 best friends all pitched in and bought him a pair of YEEZYs for Christmas pic.twitter.com/10ZraDdLtb
— nicole (@nicolejoannbb) December 24, 2016
This one below, posted by WGSN’s senior menswear editor Jian DeLeon, is another heart-warmer. His niece unwrapping the gift is in that rare state between joy and disbelief. What’s even rarer is that a pair of sneakers made this happen.
Of course, this has always been Kanye’s plan. In a video cut together by fan account TeamKanyeDaily, you can watch the designer/rapper explain his ambitions. “I build things that mean things to people, I make the Christmas presents.” You can’t watch these videos and deny that.
"I build things that mean things to people, I make the Christmas presents" @kanyewest pic.twitter.com/JKEQAlFOU8
— TeamKanyeDaily (@TeamKanyeDaily) December 26, 2016
After a 2016 that left many cold, watching people gift these precious items and the reactions of those who received them put a smile on my face. As someone who writes about menswear for a living, it made me even happier that it was a piece of clothing — a sneaker at that! — that has the ability to make people forget about the rolling cameras primed to capture a viral reaction, the controversy, and maybe even Kanye for a second, and just lose it.