Brands like Supreme talk a lot about community.

This collab is for the community. This store brings our community together. We are a community brand. It all sounds great, and the more you hear it, the more you believe it.

Except when you take a step back and dissect what a community actually is, or should be.

A community is a group of people with shared characteristics, interests and values. It also, ultimately, is not transactional. A community should interact and exchange values with the brand itself, and not just money.

So when I look at that Supreme queue again, I can’t help but think, is that actually a community? Or a queue of people all trying to buy something?

Is a t-shirt a shared interest or value? And what else are these people actually exchanging?

I look at the queue and think again. This isn’t a community. This is a brand that’s really good at selling stuff to a very specific demographic.

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