Michael Foster-Sanders
editor-in-chief

Scalpers and resellers are the scum of the earth and deserve to burn in hell for the misery they bring for people who like to buy new stuff in person, and online.        

 I know that was a bit extreme, but due to their antics, the worlds of gaming, fashion and other items have become a cesspool for those who are looking to make a living from capitalizing from the genuine love that people have for certain things.          

Scalping isn’t anything new to the world. It used to be reserved for sporting and concert events, along with the occasional new toy that comes out for the holidays. But now in this world of Only Fans workers, and Instagram influencers aka the trying to get paid by doing nothing crowd has become a plague likened to the locus in the bible.         

Being the self-proclaimed sneakerhead I am. I pride myself on having the latest, and greatest sneakers. I’m not talking about sneakers that hypebeast go after like the Kanye West “Yeezy” line by Adidas, but styles like the Nike Air Jordan, Dunks, or Air Max.  Since being a sneakerhead is the latest thing that has been culture vulture by capitalist mainstream America. I can’t even get a general release like an Air Force 1 sneaker, because these dweebs and dorks think they can make a quick buck by marking up the price by $60.00. 

Assisting in these termites reign of terror are computer programs called bots. Bots are programs that use links for product placement to do multiple instant purchases for the user causing people to miss out on recently released things. The Xbox Series X and S pre-orders fell victim to the scalpers due to Microsoft, and other retail outlets releasing the link, and not having great captcha security enforcements causing the stock to be depleted within minutes, and pre-orders marked up for reselling on places like eBay, and Facebook marketplace. 

Retailers can help combat this problem by enforcing extra security measures to stop the bots in their tracks. But at the same time I don’t think the retail companies care because they are still making money. So at the end of the day we still lose.