I picked up a pair of Shaq shoes when I was in middle school for that reason. Weirdly it did help. I remember a kid that would pick on me stopped because he thought my shoes were cool. Everyone thought they had to have been really expensive too (like Jordan shoes), but they weren't. I had found them at some discount retailer. I'm not even sure if they were legit, but they said Shaq and they looked cool. Eventually someone else found the shoes and brought up that they were inexpensive shoes, but by that time I'd already moved on to a different pair of shoes.