BEST FOOT FORWARD
The New Yorker|September 25, 2023
How to feel about an "okay" rating of your feet by strangers on the Internet.
ZIWE
BEST FOOT FORWARD

PERSONAL HISTORY

Unfortunately, I am on wikiFeet. For those who do not know, wikiFeet is a photo-sharing foot fetish site dedicated to celebrities’ feet. I found out that I was on it in 2019, at a time when I would not have described myself as a celebrity. A friend forwarded my rating to me, insisting that I had “made it.” The idea that anyone would invest time and energy ogling my feet was beyond my comprehension, but it was true—I was featured on a Web site that averaged more than ten million visitors a month.

I do not judge the sexual proclivities of members of the wikiFeet community. But, personally, my sexual proclivity is that no one look at my feet, ever. To my horror, I learned that I had a wikiFeet rating of two stars, categorized as “okay feet.” While “okay” is technically not an insult, it is not a compliment, either. I hate my feet. Also, I hate everyone else’s feet. In my humble opinion, feet are just ugly hands, and hands are not that cute to begin with. But, though it’s fine for me to have disdain for my extremities, for strangers to rate my ten toes as anything other than “perfect,” “beautiful,” or possibly “dainty” is a hate crime that should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. This may seem like an irrational reaction, but you are wrong and stupid, and also, shut up!

This story is from the September 25, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.

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This story is from the September 25, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.

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