Growing up in Georgia (the American state), I had friends from all over — Korea, Georgia (the country), Tanzania, etc.
So, since I visited their homes and got a taste of their ways, I learned early on that not wearing shoes inside was common practice for them. Even though in my own home I wore shoes or didn’t depending on my mood and never thought about it either way, I abided by what seemed like their odd rules and checked my shoes at the door along with the pile of others.
It wasn’t until I ventured outside of our borders, however, that the scale of the practice across the world became evident.
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To wear or not to wear? That is the question.
Via 22 West Magazine (emphasis added):
Wearing shoes inside the house is a normal habit in western culture. How many times have you taken off your shoes without being asked inside someone else’s home? The answer is, probably very rarely or never.
In America, it is normal for guests to wear their shoes inside the home unless explicitly asked to remove them due to certain circumstances, such as taking off muddy shoes on rainy days to avoid staining the carpet. It is so common that we have doormats outside our front doors and even “mud rooms” where people can clean off their shoes so that they don’t track dirt and mud into the other parts of the home…
This could also be how some Americans perceive shoe removal — — that taking off your shoes means that you are completely comfortable and keeping them on is more respectful and formal. When I have guests over, I don’t mind if they keep their shoes on unless their shoes are coated in mud. It is America’s cultural norm to wear shoes inside the home and this can be for many reasons, both parties might want to be respectful and walking around in socks or bare feet may seem too casual and can be awkward, especially if you don’t know the person that well.
Anyway, something of an X dumpster fire erupted on the platform in recent days regarding a picture snapped of Vivek in what looks like a residence wearing a full suit for an interview but with bare feet off-camera.
Vivek will never be governor of Ohio. This is unacceptable for America. pic.twitter.com/v66giuMpSt
— Marlin, Esq (@nostalgiafkninc) February 28, 2025
Yalllll. Why is Vivek not wearing shoes for this interview? 🤣 pic.twitter.com/XvKlDOxarb
— Lizzie Marbach (@LizzieMarbach) February 28, 2025
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If you hit X and search “Vivek feet,” you’ll get swamped with posts like this.
Probably a lot of it is just good-natured trolling, but some people apparently are legitimately offended that a man running for governor of Ohio would have the gall not to wear shoes for an interview — which strikes me as an odd, slightly puritanical fixation.
I’m not a fan, by way of disclaimer, of Vivek Ramaswamy for substantive reasons I have detailed before (see here). The TL;DR summary is: he took advantage of the terror created by the COVID lockdown architects to collude with the NIH to steal and monetize your private healthcare data; he has pushed failed drugs he knows beforehand aren’t going to work in elaborate pump-and-dump schemes; he does all of his shady business dealings while lecturing Americans about their moral bankruptcy.
The feet thing doesn’t crack the Top 100 in my anti-Vivek list. But to each his own.
