Earlier this month, while lazily scrolling through my Instagram Stories feed, a slyly placed ad appeared. Set against an all-white background was a pair of pristine Balenciaga Triple S sneakers—the pièce de résistance of Demna Gvasalia’s fall 2017 Balenciaga collection, an ugly sneaker to rule them all—and above it the announcement of an unbelievable sale: this $850-plus sneaker was available for less than half that price. The sponsored post, served to me from an account calling itself “Balenciaga,” seemed legitimate enough.

I swiped up—Instagram Stories is a safe space, right? Maybe you would’ve realized that the plain webpage I was whisked away to was not in fact balenciaga.com, but balenciaga-mall.com, a weeks-old site that originated somewhere in Kansas. I didn’t, and instead bookmarked it, deciding to buy myself a pair at the end of the work day. And I almost followed through, until a coworker pointed out that the website looked...dubious: The “about us” page was lifted word-for-word from Balenciaga’s Wikipedia page.

As long as there have been luxury goods, there have been knockoffs of luxury goods. But the impulses that pushed me toward these fake sneakers speak to this particular moment in fashion, when the business of luxury hoaxes and fakes moves at hyperspeed. The designer of those Balenciagas seems to be engaged in a large-scale practical joke about what counts as luxury, Instagram stories has turned into an advertising thunderdome, and the factories that make fake sneakers are closer than ever to nailing the real thing. All of which adds up to this: it is easier than ever to be a participant, witting or unwitting, in the world of black-market sneakers.

In the weeks since nearly getting duped, my Instagram Stories feed, as well as those of friends and acquaintances, has been inundated with posts advertising insane sales. The promise of half-off grails nips at me wherever I go. Sure, the Internet’s always been designed for fantasy scams, from flashing banners to those weight-loss Facebook ads that stalk you around the web. But hawking knock-off hyperluxe sneakers on Instagram seems especially insidious, because high-ticket items like the Triple S are heart-click gold on social media. Instagram is where we go to see celebrities flexing in Triple Ss—and now, to be sold our own, too.

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On Instagram, the sale and circulation of fake luxury goods constitutes an enormous shadow economy. A 2016 study conducted by a team of World Economic Forum security researchers concluded that about one-fifth of Instagram posts tagged with luxury items were fake, funneling users to counterfeit sellers or outright phishing operations. According to the Washington Post, Instagram facilitates the sale of about $29 billion in counterfeit goods. That’s only a fraction of the total $461 billion counterfeit goods industry, but it’s significant, not least because Instagram is tailor-made to make us want things.