Shoe flinging - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For G, who asked why there were shoes hanging from a set of power lines...

Shoe flinging - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Shoes hung from overhead wires (Shoefiti)

Shoe flinging or Shoefiti is the American and Canadian practice of throwing shoes whose shoelaces have been tied together so that they hang from overhead wires such as power lines or telephone cables. The shoes are tied together by their laces, and the assembly is apparently then thrown at the wires as a sort of bolas. This practice plays a widespread, though mysterious, role in adolescent folklore in the United States. Shoe flinging has also been reported in Australia.

Shoe flinging occurs throughout the United States, in rural as well as in urban areas. Usually, the shoes flung at the wires are sneakers; elsewhere, especially in rural areas, many different varieties of shoes, including leather shoes and boots, also are thrown.

A number of sinister explanations have been proposed as to why this is done. Some say that shoes hanging from the wires advertise a local crack house where crack cocaine is used and sold. Others claim that the shoes so thrown commemorate a gang-related murder, or the death of a gang member, or as a way of marking gang turf. A newsletter[1] (PDF) from the mayor of Los Angeles, California reports that '[m]any Los Angeles residents fear 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 them. These explanations have the ring of urban legend to them, especially since the practice also occurs along relatively remote stretches of rural highways that are unlikely scenes for gang murders or crack houses.

Other, less sinister explanations also have been ventured. Some claim that shoes are flung to commemorate the end of a school year, or a forthcoming marriage as part of a rite of passage. It has been suggested that the custom may have originated with members of the military, who are said to have thrown military "