In response to Lee’s new perspective on life, God said, “Let your wallet be light.”
Photo by Sharon Roth
Second-year UCSD student Joseph Lee has gained notoriety from a public scene where Lee claims he wascompelled to wear a Supreme fanny pack as a belt after experiencing what he believes was contact with God. Lee stated that during this encounter, he “felt the holy force of the Lord drop a fanny pack in his hands and tell him to put it on immediately.” The event, which was live-streamed by an anonymous witness on Instagram Live, has gone viral on Hypebeast forums, amassing more than two million views.
The incident occurred on Library Walk last Wednesday while Lee was signing up for student organizations. “I fell to my knees,” shared Lee, who now goes by @yvng_plvg_xXx on Instagram, while describing the event triggered by his loose jeans he was constantly trying to pull up as “divine intervention.” According to Lee, the epiphany lasted five minutes, in which he sat on his knees and “could not help but burst into tears at the sheer power of the Lord.” He then reportedly found himself holding the Supreme fanny pack. “Immediately after putting it around my waist, I had the overwhelming urge to check online for the next Supreme drop, which just happened to be the next morning. It’s like my eyes opened for the first time — I truly believe that I came close to God.”
Lacey Greene, a UCSD freshman and witness to the event, initially believed that Lee was having a mental breakdown. “He was screaming about God,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “I heard that students can get really homesick, so I didn’t blame him. I pulled out my ID and was ready to call campus police when suddenly he stood up and put on the fanny pack as a belt. After seeing that, I actually did call the police.”
A conversation with the UCSD campus police corroborated Lee’s beliefs. “One of the officers was wearing Yeezys,” Lee said in an official Twitter statement. “Did you know that Yeezy is short for Yeezus, which is a name Kanye derived from Jesus himself? That’s how I know that my near-God experience was real.” The statement, a screenshot of a paragraph typed out on the iPhone Notes app, included Lee’s Instagram handle and a unique code for 10% off the purchase of sneakers from a third-party retail website. Lee has since retracted the statement, clarifying that he “wasn’t sure” if the campus security was wearing “real Yeezys” or other shoes that “simply looked similar.”
Since his experience, Lee has not removed the jeans or fanny pack, declaring it a “sin to remove God’s gift,” and told reporters that he woke up all his apartment roommates for the most recent “8 a.m. Supreme drop, bro.” According to Lee, the event has allowed him to understand the “sinfulness of bad fashion” and has convinced him to convert other students to what he believes is “God’s true message.” After skipping his classes to browse r/streetwear and r/hypebeast on Reddit for the past week and amassing over 63 Instagram followers, Joseph Lee believes he is ready to spread the word of God: “I think I’m, like, the richest messiah or something.”
