Shoe tossing

Shoe-tossing 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.

Several theories have been put forth to explain the phenomenon. One posits that it’s a form of bullying: a bully steals a pair of shoes and tosses them where they are unlikely to be retrieved.

Another views shoe tossing as a practical joke played on drunks, who wake up to find their shoes missing. More ominously, 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.

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.