The Sockless Boat Shoe Trend Has Caused Some Kind of Foot Fungus Epidemic

People complain a lot about Mondays. And despite how Wine Mom it is to do so, I've gotta be honest: they are trash. They really are. Mondays are a bleak and blinding reminder that you are, despite all your earnest and dewy-eyed denial, a cog in a not-very-well-oiled machine. That you are, to your 21-year-old self's dismay, very much a piece of the capitalist world order. Benefiting from it in the most average and insignificant way, but too entrenched to get out. And too cynical about all that "off the grid" nonsense to buy a one way ticket to Guatemala ever, also, (WHICH THE POWERS AT BE BANK ON YOU DOING BY THE WAY) so you're more or less guaranteed to do this sad little dance until The Man pays you a nice little severance package at 50 (when you're no longer relevant in business) and you figure "maybe it's not that early to retire" (time is an arbitrary abstraction) and you take a couple cruises to the Med and eventually die in your bed.

Mondays. They'll get you.

Guess what I had to cope with on this lovely, sunshine-y Monday morning at 9.13am? When I sat down at my desk and began perusing tasks for the day? Guess what I have since had the pleasure of learning and, in turn, will be relaying to you?

Foot fungus in young men is on the rise because it's considered fashionable (in some circles) to not wear socks with shoes. You heard me. Men are wearing socks less, because of Style Reasons, and so their feet are sweating more, and so they are getting fungal infections more also. That is the news today. This is what we have to come to terms with right now. This is not a drill: this is coming from The College of Podiatry in London, people.

So people like Sam Smith and Tom HIddleston and Jamie Foxx are wearing "you can't arrest me my dad's a lawyer" shoes AKA boat shoes and Gucci slides on the red carpet and during interviews with Jimmy Fallon (world's worst man) and they do not, ever, it seems, wear socks with them. This has, naturally, trickled down into the subconscious of every man who listens to Martin Garrix and has a friendship group of 14 dudes. And that behaviour has, in turn, created some kind of foot fungus epidemic.

I'm sorry. I know. It's a lot to take in. And unfortunately there's more.

Emma Stephenson, a podiatrist, told BBC Newsbeat that one of the worst incidents she'd seen of this phenomenon was "a 19-year-old man who worked in a car wash. He had very sweaty feet and trench foot." That's right; the condition named for soldiers whose infections were a result of months in a literal trench in fucking World War I. Take your time.

But let's assess: Is the real problem here that men are getting foot infections at a higher frequency that we've seen in a long time? That men are suffering? No. No it isn't. That is inconsequential to me, beyond having to bear the burden of the information. I do not care. The real issue at hand is this: shoes without socks is hella ugly!!!! Stop doing it!! It's a terrible trend and you should feel bad for propagating it!!!!