I apologise in advance about the next few paragraphs you have the displeasure of being subjected to…only I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about shoes and couldn’t get them off my mind (or my feet…haha)…(sorry). Anyway, this is what I was thinking.

It really makes me laugh how everyone wants to be different, and individual, and, most of all, cool…yet people seem to all have the same shoes.

For example, all the menacing, Satan-worshipping, creature-of-the-night-type Goth-metallers seem about two metres taller than most people, as they all wear big black boots, with soles of about three inches of depth, and, frankly, are pretty scary what with all the violently spiky skewer things sticking out the sides. You see, what I don’t get is, Goths – more than any other "genre", I suppose we’ll have to refer to it as – try to be so peculiarly unique, yet, all wear the same shoes! Thus proving my point.

Skaters. OK, fair enough, they kind of have to wear the same kind of shoes because, well, they’re skate shoes, and you can’t really skate in high heels. Or at least, I wouldn’t advise it. But, you get these little kids walking round town with their squeaky clean, sixty-quid-a-pop Etnies, and their Vans hoodies and Quiksilver trousers, and I just want to throw them in the sundial. I really do. If you’re going to wear the shoes, buy a skateboard and wear them out, for Christ’s sake!

I tell you what else makes me laugh. Converse All Stars. I have to admit, I love these shoes, I really, truly do, and I’m ashamed to say I happen to own more than one pair. In fact, I own more than two pairs (but still, I didn’t pay for them, so who’s counting?). But anyway. Converses. Who wears them more? Emo-kids? Or Punks? And which two music types hate each other more then Emo-kids and Punks?! See how silly this is? Emo-kids hate punk, and Punks despise emo, but they wear the same footwear! United by the shoes or what?

To be honest, and though I hate to admit it, shazzers/townies/slappers (or whatever you care to label them as) are the only ones that are true to themselves, i.e. don’t try to be individual. In fact, they’re all the same, which is just how they want to be, (sheepies!) but you know what’s odd? They have a bigger range of shoes in all their little shazzy shops than anybody else. Coincidence? I think not.

Written by Luce