There's a type of entrepreneur that Instagram and Shopify built. You know the archetype: young, plugged into streetwear culture, good at building an audience, and convinced that the path to wealth runs right along the edge of someone else's brand. Make something that looks like the popular thing, slap your own logo on it, and sell it to your followers. What's the worst that could happen?

Nick Tuinenburg just found out.

Big Business on Discord

Tuinenburg was a sneaker influencer who ran Discord servers with tens of thousands of members, promoted replica Nike products across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit, and distributed personalized affiliate discount codes for PandaBuy—a platform that essentially serves as a shipping agent for overseas counterfeit sellers. He built a curated counterfeit catalog at W2C.net. He gave away fake Jordans to grow his following. The whole operation was out in the open.

But the part that really got him was his own brand. Tuinenburg ran a streetwear company called Divide the Youth, which manufactured and sold its own sneakers—"Division Dunks"—that closely mimicked the overall look of Nike's iconic Dunk silhouette. He didn't put a Swoosh on them. He used his own star logo and marketed them as DTY products. At one point, he even edited Instagram posts to change "Division Dunks" to "Division Lows"—which Nike later argued was a deliberate attempt to cover his tracks.

On March 19, 2026, a federal jury in the Central District of California came back with an $11 million verdict. Tuinenburg personally owes $8 million in statutory damages for counterfeiting. His brand, Divide the Youth, owes another $3 million—$2 million for counterfeiting and trademark infringement, and $1 million specifically for copying the look of the Dunk shoe itself.

The defense argued he only sold 384 pairs and made about $56,000 in profit. The law doesn't care.

One detail that stands out to me as a Reddit moderator: the r/rep subreddit that Tuinenburg co-founded with Fox and another user called "gillyreps" as part of this operation is still active. According to Nike's complaint, the trio launched r/rep in December 2023 as a centralized hub for their counterfeit content—a place harder to get banned from than TikTok or Instagram. They announced it with a giveaway of fake Jordans and Dunks. A jury just found that this conduct was willful counterfeiting worth $11 million in damages, and yet the accounts associated with this scheme are still moderating the subreddit today. I find that pretty remarkable.

Why This Matters Beyond Sneakers

Nike didn't just win because Tuinenburg was hawking fakes on Discord. It also won because Divide the Youth copied the shape of the Dunk even though it used completely different branding.

That's what trade dress protects. Not the logo. Not the name. The overall look and feel of a product—its silhouette, its proportions, its paneling. Nike has the Dunk's appearance registered as a trademark, and it's incontestable:

As Nike's lawyer put it after trial, the Dunk trade dress can be infringed even "if you remove the SWOOSH."

This is the part that the Instagram-entrepreneur generation doesn't understand. There's a widespread belief that if you don't copy someone's logo, you're in the clear. That you can reverse-engineer a popular shoe, put your own name on it, and call it inspiration. That as long as you're not selling literal counterfeits with a Swoosh on them, you're fine.

You are not fine. You are walking through a minefield. And just because someone you follow on TikTok made it across doesn't mean you won't get blown to financial bits.

The Bigger Picture

Online platforms have made it absurdly easy to launch a product line. That's mostly great. But they've also created a generation of founders who skip the part where you consult a lawyer before you manufacture 400 pairs of shoes that look exactly like someone else's registered trade dress. The barrier to starting a brand has never been lower. The consequences of getting it wrong haven't changed at all.

Nike sought $18 million in this case. The jury gave it $11 million. Tuinenburg was 22 when Nike filed suit. He's now on the hook for a judgment that will follow him for a very long time.

Table of Authorities

• Nike, Inc. v. Nicholas C. Tuinenburg, No. 2:23-cv-10495 (C.D. Cal. 2026) — CourtListener
• U.S. Trademark Reg. No. 3,711,305 (Nike Dunk Trade Dress)
• U.S. Trademark Reg. No. 3,780,236 (DUNK Word Mark)

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