Alright, this is the last of it. No more. After this, I will not publicly address Complex’s “The 50 Greatest Streetwear Brands” list, and the surrounding noise, again. That doesn’t mean I’m not gonna have some final fun with it before we say sayonara. I pulled some of my favorite tweets from the last couple days of Streetwearmania for your reading pleasure. Laugh loud. Laugh often.

Earlier this afternoon, while I was getting swatted around by Dante, Ill Bill, and Paul Mittleman in my @replies, Gomez asked me:

Haha.. The answer really is no. This has been a lot of fun, and educational for me as well. Somebody said that it probably would’ve been smarter to have just not written the List at all. I disagree wholeheartedly. To whom much is given, much is required. If you’ve been blessed with the platform, use your voice to stand for what you believe in, and what you think is right. To do any less, especially just to save your own reputation, is shameful.

This guy wrote a well-written response to my list on his blog. You can check it out HERE.

What exactly do you mean, Nick?

Oh, you mean, like this, Nick?

So weird that my dad is on Twitter.

Anyways, now that I’m done trembling, the best responses were the kids who looked past feelings and actually saw the educational value in the piece.

It was nice to hear from some of the pioneers, who stayed level and brought levity:

Also nice to hear from other brands, friends, and competitors, who contributed their own 2 cents. Some were on the Top 50 list, others weren’t, but they all stayed objective, critiqued, lent commentary, and kept it professional. It’s called discourse, and it’s the only way for a movement to move forward.

And then there’s Mishka. Once again, Greg taking his complaints to the screen, questioning the integrity of the List to an audience of half-interested hypebeasts. Greg wants to know, how on Earth is Mishka number 30 and not in the Top 15?! Insinuating on messageboards and other dark corners of the Internet that it’s all a marketing scheme, all about “strategy” as if this were a military operation to reclaim streetwear glory. Dude, what? Let’s be honest here Greg, if I wanted to be strategic, I wouldn’t have spent my weekend writing glowing press releases for all our competitors. If it was about strategy, I would’ve tagged you at #51 on the Top 50.

Okay, now you’re sending me mixed signals.

STREETWEAR~!!!!

by bobbyhundreds