> I doubt it's a new phenomenon -- presumably in the past people bought sneakers because some celebrity wore them or recommended them. Ancient Romans bought sp

> I doubt it's a new phenomenon -- presumably in the past people bought sneakers because some celebrity wore them or recommended them. Ancient Romans bought specific brands because gladiators advertised it, and their most parasocially attached fans bought their bottled sweat as perfume. So it's been around for as about as long as true commercial enterprises in the "modern" sense have been around. > But it's probably more ubiquitous? I think it's far more obvious today, because it's so hyper focused and fractured and short lived today that these phenomena are no longer society wide, decade long "fashion trends". In the era of mass media, everyone got influenced by the same handful of celebrities and wasn't really aware of what was happening since everyone did it roughly at the same time, now you have thousands of bubbles forming around thousands of micro-celebrities, and everyone thinks what people in the other bubbles are doing is weird.