Music

The World Has Discovered Australia’s Obsession With Shoeys, And We Should All Be Ashamed

Thanks guys, now E.T. Canada is running headlines like, "Kacey Musgraves Backtracks, Does A ‘Shoey’ And Drinks Alcohol Out Of A Shoe For Aussie Fans".

by Joseph Earp  16 May 2019
Shoeys Australia photo

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It’s been a big few weeks for shoeys. First, chanting crowds demanded that Post Malone yeet a whole bunch of liquor into a boot and down it, which he did, because of course he did.

And then Kacey Musgraves stood firm against her crowd’s attempt to get her to drink out of the least hygenic vessel imaginable, only to later acquiesce and slurp some tequila out of a crystal slipper.

And listen, maybe you are okay with this being the way that Australia presents itself to the world. But you probably shouldn’t be. Shoeys are a national shame, and we should treat them the way that every country on earth treats its national shame — by buring that shit deep down, and talking about it only in hurried whispers, away from the press.

It’s not just that shoeys are gross and unhygenic, though they are definitely that. It’s not even that nobody is entirely clear where the shoey came from. It is that there is something so deeply uncool about the process of asking a performer to do a shoey. Most of the time, these musicians do not know what they are being asked to do. Hence, there is a weirdly hostile element to the whole process.

These people are in a new country that they’ve heard so many nice things about, and then before they know it a baying crowd is demanding what they eventually work out to be a request that they slurp some warm beer out of a trainer. Shit sucks, basically.

Anyway, thanks to the incidents with Musgraves and Malone, the secret that we are a horde of shoe-slobberers has hit international press, producing such galling headlines as “Kacey Musgraves Backtracks, Does A ‘Shoey’ And Drinks Alcohol Out Of A Shoe For Aussie Fans”.

So yeah, good work guys, now everybody knows what a bunch of fucking grotbags we are.

It’s time to repress this bizarre fetish once and for all.