Shoes Hanging From Power Lines

I had been fascinated by the shoe flinging phenomenon for quite sometime until I came to discover the story behind it.

I am certain that most people have noticed pairs of shoes hanging off power lines or telephone lines at one place or another. Some are left to wonder about what it represents. Shoe flinging is also known as ‘shoefiti‘. It is a slang derived from the words shoe and graffiti in the mid 90′s to portray the perplexity and risk involved in the flinging process. Neither drivers nor pedestrians have any clue about who got it up there and when. A shoe tosser will usually wait till the wee hours of the night when no one is around before he flings his tied pair of shoes over the utility wire. It will hang there for all to see.

 The suspended shoe is so rich in mystery that various findings supporting it’s origin and purpose have emerged. Sources suggest that shoe flinging was practiced by college club members to mark a sexual conquest while others used it for school graduation or wedding celebration. The military also practiced to mark their final days in active duty. In larger cities shoefiti was used to allocate the areas of illegal drugs were sold and used. More than one pair suspended indicated a crime crisis in the community. It was also utilized to point out gang activity, fallen gang members and territorial landmarks. Some aides make it clear that the origins of shoe flinging are not as malign as gang related. A fellow classmate’s pair off shoes could be tossed over the wire to send a ‘stay away’ message.