When I wrote this January about self-hosting my website, blog, and instance, I talked about the inspiration
for the domain, an artist named shika-illust. I mentioned that he seemed to enjoy drawing anime girls and
sneakers. I said his art was "Predictable with beauty standards and revealing clothes, but I found it very
enjoyable nonetheless," and as I was browsing his portfolio yesterday, I kind of realized I do not feel that
way anymore.
A quick change of opinion, just a few months, but I invite you to see the art, not on Instagram because I
don't have that app anymore, but on imginn.
A fair warning that while the art is safe for work, after all it is on Instagram, it is suggestive in a
few cases, and discretion is advised. You'll notice (or you'll read it from me right now) that a lot of the
time, you have semi-naked women, sometimes in lingerie, just holding the sneakers, not even using them. It
is a very male gaze view of the thing. Look at these fancy shoes, and have some naked woman as eye-candy.
Like a 1990s calendar with sports cars and naked women.
This is not exclusive to this artist, nor is it exclusive to this hobby; after all, I already gave cars as
an example. It is just today's enemy. I can see what looks like a good artistic
ability, so much so that he can draw very accurate models of sneakers, and the trace is pretty. Yet it
doesn't progress further than pin-ups of women, sexualizing them; often, there is not even a style regarding
her clothing, just pants and crop tops, or something that lets you look at her butt.
Sneaker culture has been a male-centric hobby since essentially its inception. All of the huge sneaker lines
came from men, the designers of influential models tend to be men, the people who get interviewed are men,
and most people buying are men. At least it looks like there are women here (hi!), women at every step of
the way, but the view that the culture is male-centric drives men and companies to think that, and create
hostile environments that end up excluding women. You heard all of this before. I'm describing things that
permeate a lot of hobbies and spaces.
So, since I do not look at this artist with great eyes anymore, instead of SNKR GIRL being an inspiration, I
will now reframe it as reclaiming. SNKR GIRL is not "A realistic and ideal girl" (this is a really creepy
tagline), I am SNKR GIRL now.
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