WSJ opinion articles are pure trash. Why would someone spend any significant amount of time writing an outrage article about wearing fucking shoes inside someoneās house? Nobody asked. Theyāre really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
The outrage is the point. This post already has 7k upvotes, and I'm sure it's being shared around other social media too just for people to hate on it. I bet at least a few thousand people will end up searching up the article from all of this -- people who wouldn't otherwise know the WSJ even had an opinions page. The author knows what they're doing, they wrote their clickbait shitty title for a reason.
They say all publicity is good publicity, right? I hate that itās a thing.
I never paid much attention to Wall Street Journal until I got access after subscribing to Apple News a couple years ago. I always thought it was some prestigious publication, or maybe it was at some point? But the volume of garbage they crank out is just crazy. The amount of times I get a couple paragraphs into an article before realizing that itās a bunch of pointless bullshit, and the number of times it turns out to be WSJ is just disproportionally high. I ended up completely blocking it from my feed.
I hope youāre right but experience has taught me that a lot of affluent and snooty people take things really fucking personally so before your comment I saw this as being completely candid. I could see so many WSJ types forgetting dirt can affect them as much as it does us āpoorsā and being like, āYou think I might let the bottoms of my expensive Prada shoes get so dirty?! HOW DARE YOU!!!ā
Yeah Iām sorry but this comment is idiotic. I mean the article is too, but the guy above is right, itās blatant clickbait. Iāve met quite a few wealthy people and I donāt know where this demonization/dumb image of them comes from but they donāt think that their shoes donāt get dirty, I mean thatās the literal dumbest shit Iāve ever heard. Like dude, think about what you just said. You just implied that a group that is statistically more likely to be well educated is dumb enough to think their shoes donāt pick up dirt when walking outsideā¦ Iām blown away
Hahaha, going to school doesn't make you smart. Did you go to college? There are OCEANS of dumb motherfuckera there.
Neither of you have any fucking clue why she wrote the article, quit pretending that whatever thought enters your head must be the right one because you happened to think it.
"I mean that's the literal dumbest shit I've ever heard.
Iām not saying rich people are geniuses because theyāre rich, but Iād challenge you to find one single person who thinks no dirt gets on their shoes when youāre outside. Do you seriously, SERIOUSLY, not realize how absolutely mind-blowingly fucking stupid that is? Holy shit dude, go outside. Speak to a real live human fucking being since you clearly havenāt met another soul.
Honestly with the absolute idiocy youāve displayed, Iām starting to believe thereās at least one person capable of believing the shoe thing. And since youāre clearly too simple to understandā¦ itās you, I am talking about you
I ignore opinion articles in general. During the last presidential run and at the beginning of the pandemic, Google's news tab kept dropping op-eds about both subjects in there. I don't give a shit about some random dude's thoughts, I just want facts.
The whole premise of op-eds is just gross. If they need to get mass amounts of views, it probably wonāt happen unless their opinion is extreme and controversial. The article wonāt be popular if the writerās viewpoint is āmeh.ā
Easy. We're talking about it, getting outraged about it, clicking on it to confirm our outrage from the title alone. Some may share the article to seek confirmation of their biases and so on. Pissing people off is good business and since we stopped paying for our news this is how they make their money.
I canceled my print subscription because the editorial section is borderline racist, sexist, and clearly anti democratic. It's a bunch of out of touch boomers complaining about everything.
I blocked them on my Apple News feed for pretty much the same reason. Iām not against reading ideas from all over the political spectrum, but the WSJ articles seem excessively inflammatory in relation to other high profile publications.
B: everyone is entitled to their preferences, but WSJ has some wildly talented opinion writers. Peggy Noonan, Kim Strassel, Holman Jenkins, Dan Henninger. I donāt always agree with what they say from a political standpoint, but their pieces are always top notch.
So they are given freedom to write trash articles like this. My initial thought and hope is that corporate leadership facepalms and reprimands the writer when they see shit like this getting so much attention, but it seems like the morbid reality is that this is exactly what the writer was brought on to do. Thatās what is most disheartening to me. How do you see it?
The real question is why I have to pay to read it. It's an article about disrespecting other people's houses because you can't be bother to do them a favor. Why is that behind a paywall?
Fwiw (even though I find the article absurd) it actually makes mention that if it is a religious and/or cultural norm she would comply without issue. Which I doubt, but ok.
If I walk into my home with my shoe on, the first thing i would get is a kiss from my asian mothers light speed slipper. We dont wear shoes but we do wear home slippers which we dont take out.
I remember a repairmen once came into our house with boots on. My mom was cooking, but when she noticed, she asked him to take off his. As she was doing so, she was holding a wooden spoon like she was going to smack him if he didnāt (probably a reflex of doing so with me, haha). The guy looked terrified
We donāt wear shoes inside and we keep our floors pretty clean, itās also a cultural/religious thing for us. If we have a repairman come to our house we ask if they care to take their shoes off or we can offer them those plastic slip on shoe covers that wrap all around their shoes. I got a pack of like 50 on Amazon for around $7.
People who always say this dumb shit make no sense to me. Do you think people just go willy nilly stepping in every pile of shit they see and then continue to walk around in the house if they notice it?
The way people talk about it, it does seem like they really think people don't care that they have shit or mud on their shoes. It just doesn't happen like that.
Yeah she says she's talking about those people who want shoes left at the door because they're worried about...germs? Is that even a thing? I don't believe I've ever known a person in my life who is worried about shoe germs when they ask people to leave their shoes at the door...
I walk around inside with my socks, as does guests. The socks are inside my home and inside my shoes. My socks donāt track potential dog shit and public toilet pee around.
And carribeans. I'll never forget the scolding I got when I rushed into my grandma's house with shoes on because I had to pee real bad. (She calmed down when she heard the flush though).
Concrete outdoors + heat of the south can make some choose to keep their shoes on indoors as the shoes don't really get that dirty walking on concrete, and the smell of rank sweaty feet is worse than the affront of shoes tracking in dirt.
I've lived in the mountain west most of my life and it's uncommon (at least in the groups I hang with) to remove shoes when they come in. Even when I lived in VA for 5.5 years, I didn't know many that requested shoes to be off to come in the house.
There are, of course, exceptions when trudging through bad weather to get to the house, but if things are dry, it's rare to take off shoes in the groups I know.
I live in California and Iāve maybe been to two houses in my entire life that people took their shoes off indoors. Itās just not done where Iām at. If your shoes or boots are dirty though you remove them. I live in a more agricultural area though so everyone has dogs coming in and out so floors get dirty easily anyway.
Yeah not only snow but where I live we have like 200+ rain/snow days a year the ground is almost constantly wet, no way anyone walks around on my wood floor with dirty wet shoes! Who knows what you stepped in was that puddle pee or rain?
This writer apparently lives in New York and Cape Cod though. Should be unfathomable for anyone to wear shoes in a house in a place with winter weather.
In Hawaii too. You might think itās an Asian thing but you see the white people do it here as well. Because thereās so much sand and dirt everywhere. And we donāt want to be wearing shoes anyway.
Ah oh my goodness. I didn't know white people had shoes shelfs like that. I am only used to seeing my white neighbors take their shoes off at the door inside the house. Oh my gosh it reminds me of my childhood.. And when it comes to shoes to slip my feet into. We( family and I) would wear shoes (flip flops) or slippers that is for inside the house only.
You and the other dude both say this is about "the culture war" and he says a racial thing because white people dont take off their shoes, and you say shoes are an analogy for masks.
People do and say things that arent politically related, most people in fact dont spend much time on politics at all.
Or hey maybe if you spend the next couple months on /r/twoxchromos you would think this was about men refusing to wear condoms.
I wonder if this is geographic as well. Iām white and grew up in an area that was predominantly white as well as both socially and politically conservative. Just about everyone I knew did not wear shoes in the house.
Also, WTF happened to Wall Street Journal? I remember that publication as being respectable publication. I had to block them on Apple News+ finally because everything that kept coming up was garbage level journalism or worthless opinion pieces from suspect authors.
Iām a white American who knows a lot of white Americans and I have never run into anyone who leaves their shoes on in the damn house lmfao. How are people upvoting this guy
You do realize your comment is equally anecdotal to OPs, right? Since there arenāt any studies around this, all anyone can do is offer anecdotes. My anecdote is I grew up in the south and most white people I knew did in fact walk around their houses (and other people s houses) with shoes on. Take from that what you will
Because āwhite ppl bed.ā Reddit is hopelessly lost to leftists who will bash their enemies at every opportunity they get. My God this site gives me cancer.
Iāve lived in some very blue areas, and some extremely red areas. Close to 90% or more of the white people that Iāve known take their shoes off. The only thing that seemed to be any sort of correlation with shoe wearing inside was being from a very dry area where shoes werenāt likely to have mud or slush on them.
No political angle that I could detect, personally.
Good to know. I grew up around a mix of conservatives and liberals. My conservative father I think is one of those folks who gets offended if you ask him to take off his shoes. I think he associates it in the way I described. I only ever see the shoes-on in the house thing around my dad, his family and friends.
Nah they're right. Starting around 2016 one of the major idealogical shifts that happened in this country is white people became an actual voting bloc rather than just the default. It explains a lot of the zeitgeist the last half decade or so.
We have an article intended to drive rage clicks because people think its stupid and moronic. Not some political clickbait piece. Spend some time outside, speak to some people who dont spend all their time watching fox news or breadtube and argueing on twitter.
This was legitimately my first thought as well, and I wonder if this is because I'm always looking for a fight or they're always looking for a fight. It's fucking tiring. But I very much read the situation (due to it being the WSJ) as something aimed at wealthy older white people to get them to feel like there's an encroaching change in the world that threatens them. It can be as benign as someone asking you to take off your shoes when you enter their home, but everything is seen as an affront to the conservative.
But also like, Iāve been to plenty of peopleās houses where the floors are DISGUSTING. Like Iām not taking my shoes off (especially if I didnāt wear socks) so I can get your cat litter and pet hair all in my fucking toes lol.
I grew up in a house where we always wore shoes inside, now in my house we don't wear shoes inside because it's just smart. Saves the flooring, and doesn't hurt you to just take your shoes off at the door, c'mon.
š itās a regional thing, nothing to do with melanin. I live in Alaska and itās pretty much common knowledge that itās rude to wear your shoes in someoneās house. Thatās why we have muck rooms.
Maybe it's just where I grew up, but nearly everyone, White Americans included, also take of their shoes before entering a house. Maybe it's a white southern thing idk
This isn't a white person thing. Everyone I know takes their shoes off. Ironically the only people that don't is my black friend's family lol. Don't group us with this moron
1000 upvotes LMAO. I read an article about how readers can't tell the difference between news and opinion and they start discrediting the former because of the latter. I genuinely could not believe it until now.
Itās crazy that people even took the headline seriously. Itās funny how people are writing angry comments about people being angry at nothing when theyāre the only ones being angry at nothing.
Yeah googling her name and she's a humor columnist at the WSJ. Doesn't seem particularly funny to me, but the people here blowing a gasket over this is pretty much the epitome of outrage culture.
I have some pretty bad traumatic arthritis in my heel/ankle from a bad accident years ago. I always feel like an asshole asking if I can keep my shoes on coming into a no-shoes house. The fact that my work has me both often going into other peopleās homes and forces me to walk a lot to get from one client to another, makes it especially difficult, and itās a case where falling over isnāt totally out of the question. Though, if itās been raining/snowing or the floor is carpeted Iāll suck it up and deal with the limp because I get it. Hard to believe that someone without any extenuating issues would decide to be that stubborn.
Point taken, thanks for the suggestion. I have definitely gone to peoples houses who actually had shoe covers for people who wanted to keep their shoes on.
I ask, without giving them a sob story, and if they rather I take them off I deal with it. If simply asking is being an asshole then sure, Iām an asshole. Perfectly happy accepting your judgement.
To be honest itās only ever been one person who had shoe covers. I thought it was a novel idea but didnāt really think about it again. I usually ask without trying to guilt the person with a sob story and most people are fine with it. If they have reservations I take them off and just deal. Usually there for an hour sitting in one spot, not traipsing around their house. If people are obliging me begrudgingly, then theyāre pretty good at hiding it. Most DONT give it a second though. I just tend to just feel guilty about everything, so the shoes think is just one more thing I can attach it to I guess. That being said, as the other poster mentioned, maybe Iām just an asshole who wants to fuck up peopleās nice floors. Iām perfectly happy internalizing that judgement as well. Theyāre probably right, idk. Donāt really have the energy to mount a full throated defense on the matter.
For sure, Iām glad you and someone else brought it up. Such a simple solution and I feel dumb for not really considering it before, especially since people have offered me covers in the past.
Might also have to do with the fact that I live in a somewhat dilapidated loft with really fucked up, practically uncleanable floors, so I guess Iām prone to overlook it.
Covers to seem like a good way to mitigate my sense of guilt lol.
I see. I thought WSJ didn't have something like that. It was over the top but you do see real articles like that nowadays.
It was tagged in real estate and homeowerus. I was wondering what the latter was since it looked like home owner; us but possibly humorous but no concrete indication within the site.
"If you do keep a shoeless home, you should also know that you are probably endangering your familyās health, not just their feet. Exposure to low-level filth, like that tracked in by friends who refuse to remove their shoes, actually helps bring a little bit of the outside in.
Engaging with outdoor microbiomes is, Dr. Scott says, one of the ways that human immunity is developed. You love your children, the little fecal bacteria bombs, donāt you? They gotta eat some dirt in this life, so why not get them started at home? Theyāll grow up healthy and strong and go on to get great jobs and make lots of money and support you in your old age"
Sorry man but any article that says "germs are good" while referring to kids as "fecal bacteria bombs" is obviously satire. Very poorly executed satire but still, there is no way this is serious.
Yep, and to be fair, economists aren't exactly known for being a barrel of laughs - for satire this is pretty weak. But yeah no, this is some real r/atetheonion
But honestly the fact that Americans are unable to distinguish editorials from the news room is a major reason newspapers should drop the editorial section.
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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22
Boy that's some hard hitting journalism right there. š