By Genevieve Burgess | Social Media | August 20, 2019 |
By Genevieve Burgess | Social Media | August 20, 2019 |
Our new reality of everyone having cameras on them 24/7 and the ability to share those photos with the world instantly via social media has led to a lot of new knowledge and behavior patterns in our lives. We’re becoming aware of some things we didn’t know before, we’re getting glimpses into cultures around the world and exchanging memes with them in a new form of communication. We’re realizing that maybe Bigfoot and the aliens aren’t that real since they’ve MYSTERIOUSLY stopped showing up ever since we all had the ability to record them at will. Lots of learning. The other thing we’re learning? People have no home training and don’t know to keep their bare feet to themselves.
So I snitched this fucker out to the flight attendant, who told him to put them down. Puts them back a few minutes later & I asked him to put them down. “They’re your bare feet, man.” He was shocked & put them down. When he just put them back up I decided fuck it, I’m tweeting pic.twitter.com/EeeHCPUFwe
— Andy Richter (@AndyRichter) August 19, 2019
Shoutout to the two girls at Frozen last night who put their BARE FEET on the seats in front of them FOR THE ENTIRE SHOW. 😱😱😱 pic.twitter.com/clj0jImols
— Ariane Rinehart (@arianerinehart) August 14, 2019
At one of my regular Ethiopian joints.
— Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo) July 26, 2019
Owner comes up to me, in low voice:
"There are people here without any shoes. A woman & her daughter. They come in all the time. No shoes. Just their feet in here. Even in winter. Husband & son wear shoes though"
…
The perfectly nice and normal seeming man next to me started to walk to the plane bathroom in bare feet and the flight attendant was like “that’s a no from me, go put your shoes on, you animal” but very nicely and he went and got his flip flops.
— Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) June 10, 2019
Listen, folks, I am someone who hates shoes and socks. I spent summers mostly barefoot as a child until my feet turned leathery. These days I wear Birkenstocks, which are as close as I can get to being barefoot without sacrificing arch support or a minimum distance from disgusting city streets. If I’m in my apartment or house I’m probably barefoot. Even under my desk at work, I will occasionally slip my shoes off to be more comfortable. But as soon as I have to walk anywhere? Those shoes are back on. Because we live in a society.
I understand that right now many of us are flailing a bit in that society and the ugly truths we see in it. I know that many of us have lost a bit of a spark in our lives the last few years and are looking for any sources of comfort or ease in a darkening world. I know that planes, in particular, are a place where we keenly feel that we are regarded as a sentient pile of dollars rather than individual human beings so why bother behaving humanely? I know that bare feet are, generally, the most comfortable feet, and that it is hard to relax with shoes and socks on. BUT WE MUST RESIST. Do you know why? Not necessarily for other people, because a lot of other people are horrible, and I have seen numerous appeals to decency and decorum that have, apparently, been roundly ignored thus far. We are still plagued by plane-feet so clearly reminding the world at large that most people want nothing to do with you or your feet isn’t working. But perhaps an appeal to more selfish reasons will work. You see, with comfort can come apathy. And with apathy comes taking your bare feet from the relatively safe confines of the plane, to walking straight into an active dog park with those same bare feet. This is an actual thing I’ve witnessed at my apartment’s dog park. And friends? That’s how you get ringworm. No one wants ringworm. Put your damn shoes on. Thank you.