Fashion Victim: Flip-Flops

Apparently, flip-flops are a contentious issue. I guess most people don’t think about them that much. They’re a commonly acquired, cheaply-made staple for warm months that don’t really require much contemplation for the average individual.

The debate extends from fetishization (for all you foot-worshippers out there), to a pretty sizeable contingent of those who think that flip-flops just don’t make sense. I decidedly take up the call-to-arms for the latter, firmly believing that a) flip-flops are gross, b) feet are gross, c) dudes’ feet are especially gross, and therefore pretty much no one should wear them—and that those who wear them most frequently should often-times be the first ones to abstain (especially dudes).

Uh, sure there are exceptions. Laid-back, California coast attitudes pervade year-round for the Hollister beefcake. Some dudes can wear a pair, where it’s warm, and still look like they mean business—and they don’t look like douches. I guess.

I don’t know. I guess I feel like flip-flops are stupid off the beach, out of the shower room, or on the feet of pretty much anyone, male or female. And I guess that’s not a popular attitude, given how frequently one is confronted with an awful pair of feet shod in nothing but a piece of plastic and a toe thong.

D'aww.

Whatever.

Lucky for me, I guess, these are a perpetual staple for warmer-weather, and there are millions of awful looking renditions worn proudly by college co-eds, mother-and-daughter mall-shoppers, and patios in the summer. You can get them Ugg-ed, whether you’re a lady or a guy, perpetually-beloved and berated Ed Hardy makes them, you can get rhine-stoned Havaianas, if you’re so inclined. Women’s flip-flops are especially bad, but at least, perhaps, the wearer will have put on a coat of nail-polish or whatever, and generally have taken pains to make sure that their feet didn’t look like they’d been conveniently neglected for about the last million years.

I guess I just don’t get the appeal of sliding into a pair of flip-flops. I don’t see why you wouldn’t rather, you know, actually put on real shoes. I don’t see why toes need that much freedom. But I also don’t understand why Tevas still exist, I don’t understand why someone would wear these, and I don’t see why it makes sense to let bad boys like these out in daylight:

Long and short of it, for gents and lasses, is to crush your feet into a pair of pretty shoes pretty much all the time, especially if the shoes are prettier than your feet. And if you don’t, just keep them out of my face.