Good evening World Teens,
I am a Boy Scout working on my Communications merit badge. One of the requirements include emailing a newspaper editor to share my opinion on something in the magazine. Having said that, I would like to discuss an article in the most recent issue about popular brands and their dupes (page 13 September/October edition) I thank you for bringing this up, as this has been a problem within popular shoe brands. Nike, Adidas, and New Balance have all had their fair share of having other small brands "stealing" their original ideas. The question in the article is this: "Is everything that's happening with these brands fraud or frugality?" I say it's a mix of both. Sometimes, small shoe brands take inspiration from big ones. They may look similar, but it's clear the mini brand isn't trying to directly take the whole design. In my opinion, this is okay. But, other times, it gets to a point where they're clearly trying to make it look like the exact replica of the popular brand and sell it for less. This is where, for me, it goes too far. And then the brand lowers the price, makes the quality not as good, and people buy it! While I'm not saying I hate direct dupes, I still don't support it. I'd have to say though, I've never been to someone's house and look in their pantry to see a cracker box labeled Risz (obviously replicating Ritz crackers). And I'm happy we haven't gotten that far. I look forward to reading this magazine even past my teen years, and thank you for everything.
Looking forward to the next issue,
Levi N.
