Shoe tossing

Shoe tossing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in 2021

Shoe-tossing in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain (2013).

Shoe-tossing, also known as shoefiti, is the act of using footwear as a projectile as part of a number of folk sports and cultural practices. Shoe-throwing is often associated with tossing a pair of shoes with the laces tied together onto raised wires such as telephone wires and power lines, as well as trees.

Shoe-tossing occurs throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, South Africa, in both rural and urban areas. Often, the shoes are sneakers; other times, they are leather shoes and boots. Many cultural variations exist; differences abound between socioeconomic areas and age groups.

In some cultures, shoes are flung as part of a rite of passage, like to commemorate the end of a school year or a forthcoming marriage. For example, in Victorian England, people would pelt "a bride and bridegroom with old shoes when they start on their honeymoon." Some theories suggest the custom originated with members of the military, who are said to have thrown military boots, often painted orange or some other conspicuous color, at overhead wires as a part of a rite of passage after completing basic training or when leaving the service. In the 1997 film Wag the Dog, shoe tossing is an allegedly spontaneous tribute to Sgt. William Schumann, played by Woody Harrelson, who has purportedly been shot down behind enemy lines in Albania.

Shoe throwing may be a form of bullying, where a bully steals a pair of shoes and tosses them where they are unlikely to be retrieved. Shoe tossing has also been explained as a practical joke played on drunks, who wake up to find their shoes missing.

Shoes on a telephone wire are popularly said to be linked to organised crime, signifying the location of gang turf or commemorating the death of a gang member. The shoes are also rumored to mark a spot for drug deals, although a 2015 study of shoe-tossing data in Chicago rejected this explanation.

Wedding custom

See also: Wedding superstitions

Shoe-throwing at weddings has been observed in several cultures. In Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield (1850), the custom is recorded by the narrator following his marriage to Dora Spenlow:

When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that Mr. Peggotty was prepared with an old shoe, which was to be thrown after us for luck, and which he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that purpose.

In 1887, an article in The New York Times observed that: "[The] custom of throwing one or more old shoes after the bride and groom either when they go to church to be married or when they start on their wedding journey, is so old that the memory of man stretches not back to its beginning." Peter Ditchfield, writing in Old English Customs Extant at the Present Time (1896), expands: "We also throw old shoes after young married folk in order to express our wishes for their good fortune. Probably this was not the original meaning of the custom. The throwing of a shoe after a bride was a symbol of renunciation of dominion and authority over her by her father or guardian, and this receipt of the shoe by the bridegroom was an omen that the authority was transferred to him. In Kent the shoe is thrown by the principal bridesmaid, and the others run after it. It is supposed that she who gets it will be married first. It is then thrown amongst the men, and he who is hit will be first wedded."

Protest

Main article: List of shoe-throwing incidents

In many Arab cultures, throwing a shoe at someone is considered an insult. In 2008, Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi was arrested for throwing two shoes at United States President George W. Bush, in protest against the American military invasion and subsequent occupation, while the president was visiting Baghdad. Al-Zaidi shouted in Arabic: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those killed in Iraq!" President Bush ducked and was not struck by the shoes. Shoe throwing as an insult is not limited to the Arab world; other notable incidents have involved other celebrities and world leaders, including Steve McCarthy, David Beckham, Lily Allen, and Wen Jiabao.

Sports and games

Wellie wanging, or boot throwing, is a sport in which competitors are required to throw a Wellington boot as far as possible. The sport appears to have originated in the West Country of England in the 1970s, and rapidly became a popular activity at village fêtes and fundraising events across Britain. The sport is now played in many different countries, including Australia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and Russia.

Shoes have been turned into an object for group activities and games.

One PE game has the participants be put into two groups, the two groups create two lines by sitting parallel from each other, the participants then take off their shoes and throw them into the middle of the playing area in between the two groups. The game starts when the teacher or referee says so, the goal of the game is for the participants to stand up from their lines and run to the middle to receive their shoe, they have to put their shoes back on and sit back in the same order they were sitting, the first group to get back to the line wins.

Another example is a smaller group activity, that requires two of each, chairs, plastic bottles and participants. The layout of this activity is a single line with the chairs on either end of that line, with the bottles displayed in the middle. The two participants' goal is to run to their chair, take their shoes off and throw them at the bottles, whoever hits the bottle over first wins.

Shoe tossing also appears in video games. Half Dead and Half Dead 2, have shoe throwing as one of its main game mechanics. The game has the player trapped in square rooms with doors on all sides, and requires them to explore different rooms in order to find the exit and escape, however most of the rooms will have deadly traps in them. The shoe throwing mechanic lets the player identify if a room has a trap in them, the player throws a shoe into a room and it will set off a trap, if there are any.

Decoration

Main article: Shoe tree (decorated plant)

A shoe tree, not to be confused with the shoe-preservation device of the same name, is a tree (or, occasionally, a powerline pole or other wooden object) that has been festooned with old shoes. Shoe trees are generally located alongside major local thoroughfares, and they may have a theme (such as high-heeled shoes).

Gang messaging

In the United States, shoe-throwing is said to be used by gangs for a variety of purposes. For example, shoes may be used to mark a gang's territory, commemorate a fallen member, or to commemorate a non-gang member who lived in the area. However, it is difficult to determine what shoes were placed by gang members for gang-related purposes and what shoes were flung by non-gang members for other purposes. Gangs may use shoes on wires to indicate places to acquire drugs, but police officers in several jurisdictions noted that this is a myth and has yet to be proven.

A 2003 newsletter from former Los Angeles, California mayor James Hahn cited fears of many L.A. residents that "these shoes indicate sites at which drugs are sold or worse yet, gang turf," and that city and utility employees had launched a program to remove the shoes. A 2015 study of shoe-tossing data in Chicago found that the rumor and relationship between dangling shoes and drug dealing was correlational, not causal.

See also

• Abandoned footwear
• Panty tree

External links

• Close-Up: New York's hanging sneakers – BBC News report looking at the phenomenon