The Shoe Theory

Submission 3,553

Part of a series on TikTok. [View Related Entries]

About

The Shoe Theory is a superstition which claims that giving your partner shoes as a gift is bad luck and might result in them breaking up with you. The superstition purportedly stems from Asian culture, with numerous locations around the world including Korea and China believing in versions of it. The theory went viral on TikTok in December 2022 leading up to Christmas as users shared their experiences with the superstition and urged users not to get shoes for their partners, often while lip dubbing "Mariners Apartment Complex" by Lana Del Rey.

Origin

The idea of shoes being bad luck as gifts has been shared online throughout the 2000s and is linked to several cultures. In October 2009, the superstition was notably shared on superstitionsonline.com.^[1] That year, a myLot^[2] user from the Philippines shared a story about the superstition. Times Malta^[3] and gone2korea^[4] then published pieces about the theory in 2010 and Dumpling Connection^[5] published an article sharing the theory in 2019, writing:

Shoes are considered to be evil in Chinese culture because the word for ‘shoe’ in Mandarin sounds similar to the word for ‘evil’. In Cantonese, the word for ‘shoe’ sounds more like the word for ‘rough’, but it is still taboo to gift footwear. Gifting shoes is equivalent to wishing bad luck to the recipient.

On December 6th, 2022, TikToker^[6] @crystalations_ posted a video where she lip dubs to "Mariners Apartment Complex" by Lana Del Rey under the caption, "I got my man shoes for Christmas and completely forgot about the shoe theory," garnering over 1.4 million views in a week (shown below).

Spread

TikTokers continued to post videos about shoe theory, often under the same original sound, over the following days. In the videos, some users share their own experiences with shoe theory, claiming it's real, while others share their doubts about it. For example, on December 7th, 2022, TikToker^[7] @discosexguru posted a video claiming two boyfriends walked out of her life after she gifted them shoes, garnering over 553,000 views in six days (shown below, left). On the same day, TikToker^[8] @solcosmica posted a video doubting the shoe theory, garnering over 412,000 views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On December 9th, 2022, TikToker^[9] @megan.grace20 posted a video about how she got her boyfriend Lightning McQueen Crocs for Christmas one year and he left her, garnering over 2.6 million views in four days (shown below). On December 10th, Dexerto^[10] then published an article about the shoe theory.