‘The Supreme Guy’

By Ben Hymowitz

Eric Whiteback is an Instagram celebrity known to most as the “Supreme guy.” He has amassed over 500,000 Instagram followers and over one and a half million Tik-Tok followers. Today I talked with Eric about Coronavirus, Supreme, and much more.

Ben: How do you think businesses that sell mostly out of brick and mortar stores are doing now that the only way to buy is online?

Eric: I think a lot of those businesses are being forced to sort of adapt and innovate and try to move as much of their business online as possible. But yeah it’s definitely a really unfortunate thing that’s happening to a lot of those brick and mortar stores right now.

Ben: If you had to name a brand that is making the most business right now, what would you say?

Eric: Obviously there are brands like Purell and Lysol that are killing it, but as far as brands that are in our sort of lane, I would probably say a brand like Chinatown Market (CTM) for something like this just cause their turnaround time from when they actually come up with the idea to when they can get the product stocked and ready to sell is very quick. They’ve actually made some products that are relevant to right now. They’ve done some Coronavirus related products. They’ve done some Joe Exotic stuff which is just super recent and everyone’s at home watching Netflix so it makes sense. I think their ability to move quickly and be flexible allows them to still operate very well during a time like this. 

Ben: I do agree with that. They put out a design and they’re like “what do you guys think if we do this” and they come out with it two days later.

Eric: Yeah they move fast. They’re good there. 

Ben: I also like that they kind of give back to the community. Every couple of weeks they were doing a “Make a Tee Shirt Live” for a while. That was cool. What are your feelings on companies like ASSC that usually take a long time to ship, possibly using this time as an excuse to take longer to ship?

Eric: I’ve never bought anything from ASSC in my life and I understand there’s a place for pre orders and stuff like that and I understand that there are a lot of delays that are going to happen naturally and I think obviously safety is paramount to how quickly you get your products out right now but I would hope that no one is using this time to sort of, you know, take advantage of this situation.

Ben: So, how did you get into Supreme and what about it did you find interesting?

Eric: So my older brother [Joe] introduced me to Supreme probably in about 2011 or 2012. I think one of the things I found interesting right away is as an entrepreneurial kid I was super interested in their business model and the way that they were operating and what was crazy to me was it was the first time in my life I really saw the products selling well above the retail price in the secondary market which I thought was super interesting. 

Ben: Did Joe influence your love of Supreme?

Eric: Yeah he definitely did and I may not have gotten into any of that stuff without him for sure.

Ben: Wasn’t Joe the one that would go into the city and get stuff for you?

Eric: There were times that he did. He was working in the city for a summer and there were plenty of times when he would go to the store and pick items up for me. 

Ben: What are your feelings on Kith?

Eric: I think they’re a pretty strong business. My gripe with them is that I feel like they try to do way too much and I feel like they’re a little bit like a try hard brand. There’s nothing inherently wrong with them and I don’t have any beef with them or anything like that. For me it’s not something I’m particularly interested in. 

Ben: Considering the fact that the items you destroy have a pretty good value in the open market, why do you destroy them?

Eric: So I feel like people have a really hard time figuring out why, but for me it’s easy. I’ll make a video and I’ll destroy thirty or forty dollars worth of product and the video will get ten to twelve million views and that’s bringing in ten, twenty, thirty thousand new followers which allows me to sell my ad space on my social media platform for much more. So that thirty five dollar investment that I made in that video probably paid off twenty or thirty thousand dollars in ad revenue so it’s a no brainer in that sense.

Ben: What’s your all time Supreme grail that you don’t own?

Eric: The one item I’ve never been able to get my hands on is the Supreme Medicine Hat which I’ve been looking for, for a long while. It’s a funny, random one but it’s just a hard item to find.

Ben: What’s your all time favorite Supreme item?

Eric: I usually just say it’s the Red on White Box Logo tee and it’s such a staple and it’s the piece that defines the brand and the brand that defines a generation in a way.

Ben: You know I’m a sticker freak, what’s your favorite Supreme sticker of all time?

Eric: Nothing beats a good stack of miscellaneous box logos.

Ben: If you could say one thing to all of your fans, what would it be.

Eric: Buying cool clothes and wearing expensive stuff can be fun at times and it can be cool and there’s a lot of fun things that you can do with it, but at the end of the day it’s a lot cooler to be a nice person than it is to wear cool clothes. That’s something that I always try to stress. Clothing can be fun at times but it doesn’t define you. There’s way bigger things that can define you.