About

The Viral Walmart Avia Shoes refers to sneakers from the Walmart brand Avia, which went viral in late July 2025, notably after streamer Kai Cenat forced fellow streamer Rakai to buy Avias during a "back-to-school shopping" stream. After buying the shoes, Rakai admitted that he thought the shoes were "fire," which became a viral clip. Others agreed with Rakai's taste and a craze for the shoes ensued in the following weeks, spreading on sites like TikTok, Facebook and Twitter / X, among other social media platforms.

History

Avia was founded by Oregon entrepreneur Jerry Stubblefield in 1979.^[6][7] Stubblefield sold the company to Reebok in 1987.^[8] Avia was later bought by Galaxy Brand Holdings and released in Walmart stores in 2013, along with other Galaxy Brand Holdings shoe brands like And 1.^[9]

Online Presence

Rakai Avia Shoes Hype

On July 21st, 2025, Kai Cenat and Rakai went live on Twitch to do a back-to-school shopping in real life (IRL) stream. Cenat took Rakai to Walmart after blindfolding Rakai and tricking him into thinking that they were going somewhere expensive. The stream was uploaded to YouTube^[1] by the Kai Cenat Live channel on that day, gaining over 1.8 million views in a week.

The YouTube^[2] channel of Rakai Live also posted the stream that day, gaining over 230,700 views.

At the 17:39-minute mark of the Kai Cenat Live video (shown below), Cenat picks out a pair of Avia sneakers for Rakai that are white with blue, orange and grey accents.

On July 22nd, TikToker^[3] @riceplug posted a video of Rakai on a follow-up stream in which he showed off the Avia shoes and called them "fire." Over five days, the video received over 50,600 likes (shown below).

On July 25th, 2025, TikToker^[5] @itsjaysrepost posted a video in which he claimed that Rakai's promotion of the Avia shoes made them sell out at Walmart. His video received over 403,000 likes in three days (shown below).

Also on July 25th, TikToker^[4] @splizzardzzz posted a video in which he echoed the claim that Avia shoes were getting sold out at Walmart locations. He joked about the craze irking him because he wished it had existed when he was a kid, so that he wouldn't have been made fun of himself. Over three days, the video received 115,300 likes (shown below).

Romerick Humphrey Facebook Post

On July 21st, 2025, Facebook^[10] user Romerick Humphrey shared a post of himself wearing clothes from Walmart, including a pair of blue Avia sneakers. He captioned the post, "I GO WALMART SHIRT / I GO WALMART SHOES / $20 JEANS IM STILL CLEAN🤷🏾," gaining over 29,000 reactions in a week (shown below).

On July 22nd, X^[11] user @raphousetv2 shared a tweet about Humphrey's Facebook post, receiving over 85,000 likes in six days.

On July 22nd, 2025, X^[12] user @prmade313raised quote-tweeted @raphousetv2, writing, "And it's nothing wrong with this," gaining over 27,000 likes in six days (shown below).

Search Interest

External References