Oh my God, shoes.

April 16, 2016 9:37 AM

Shoes - ten years ago Liam Kyle Sullivan created "Shoes", one of the first viral hits of the YouTube era featuring his Midwestern teen girl character Kelly. Now he sits down with Vice to talk about YouTube fame, touring, how it came about, and what came after.
posted by The Whelk (30 comments total)

Ten years ago on metafilter
posted by The Whelk at 9:44 AM on April 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

These shoes are three hundred dollars.
These shoes are three hundred dollars.
These shoes are three hundred fucking dollars.

Let's get 'em.

(Text Message Breakup was also pretty funny, esp b/c Margaret Cho!)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:50 AM on April 16, 2016 [9 favorites]

Ten years ago on metafilter

From that post: "First and foremost, can we agree that a single YouTube post doth not a Mefi post make?"

Hah! Betch.
posted by dis_integration at 9:53 AM on April 16, 2016 [35 favorites]

I remember kinda crushing on that poolside robot.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:01 AM on April 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Also suggesting that this was the very first viral video is ignoring things like the Dancing Baby, 405, George Lucas In Love, or Badger Badger Badger, etc. etc. etc. There was a decade of weird videos of various kinds going viral online before this.

YouTube didn't invent viral videos, they just made it easier to upload them, and centralized them.
posted by MythMaker at 10:18 AM on April 16, 2016 [12 favorites]

Ah, the good old Terrible Secret of Space. But how disseminated was that? Youtube also made it easier to find things, and there were more people looking, too, I suspect.
posted by kenko at 10:53 AM on April 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

I am surprised that this parody of Shoes never made it to the Blue.
posted by Catblack at 10:57 AM on April 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wait. Three hundred dollars? Not five hundred? I've been wrong for years!
posted by Night_owl at 11:10 AM on April 16, 2016

I'm learning more about the internet today than I expected. Is it just that I wasn't hanging out on YT a decade ago? I've seriously never heard of this.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 11:22 AM on April 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

I loved this then and I love it now.

SHOES. Oh My Gawd. SHOES.
posted by Faintdreams at 11:42 AM on April 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

Metafilter 10 years ago: But. I was sad as a result. More disposable shit. We'll see another one tomorrow, no one will remember and care about this in a year.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:44 AM on April 16, 2016 [16 favorites]

(I'm glad to find that Metafilter has about the same crystal ball hit rate as my dad, Papa "Nobody Will Ever Remember This Nirvana Crap" Hardcheese.)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:48 AM on April 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

Mrs. Example and I still call each other "Betch" and "Deck". We actually came close to buying the t-shirts.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 11:54 AM on April 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

By the way betch...FUCK YOU!
posted by museum of fire ants at 12:50 PM on April 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

The world hath no greater friend than the one who, when you say "shoes" in the appropriate monotone, pauses the correct beat and responds "shoes" . . .
posted by ostro at 1:03 PM on April 16, 2016 [18 favorites]

The message of "shut up" to Stupid Boys remains timeless.
posted by emjaybee at 1:10 PM on April 16, 2016 [12 favorites]

my sister and I still call each other betch and deck and shetbag to this day.
posted by gc at 1:16 PM on April 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Omg shoes.

Also I love his Bob Tulap videos. Fuck you, Doug.
posted by littlesq at 1:30 PM on April 16, 2016

The All Your Base video is also 10 years old this year, which coincidentally is also my 10-year high school reunion.

Good gravy I feel old (I know I know I'm not THAT old BUT GEEZ)
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:39 PM on April 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

I believe All Your Base video is actually ×15× years old as of February?
posted by absalom at 1:51 PM on April 16, 2016 [11 favorites]

a lungful of dragon, here is some more information about that robot. I love RT!
posted by queensissy at 2:02 PM on April 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

No Booty Calls still makes me laugh after all these years! It's amazing.
posted by cobain_angel at 2:03 PM on April 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Liam Kyle Sullivan is awesome. My favorite sketch from his channel is Dirty Scrabble, where he again plays multiple hilarious characters including a Southern belle type. It's about a game of awkward family Scrabble that goes horribly wrong yet surprisingly well.
posted by Pfardentrott at 2:44 PM on April 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Good god we used to fight a lot.
posted by sourwookie at 4:07 PM on April 16, 2016

No we didn't.
posted by TwelveTwo at 4:22 PM on April 16, 2016

Do you have stairs in your house?
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 6:48 PM on April 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

Oh my god, shoes. And now I'm irreversibly earwormed for the rest of the night!
posted by TwoStride at 7:59 PM on April 16, 2016

The All Your Base video is also 10 years old this year, which coincidentally is also my 10-year high school reunion.

Nope -- All Your Base is substantially older than a decade. I was in undergrad when it came out - I've been out of undergrad for almost 14 years.
posted by jb at 10:12 PM on April 16, 2016

"Shoes" is pretty earwormy and quotable once you get past the Len Cella-grade framing hurdy-hur humor to the actual meat of the matter, but any time I lose myself and fall into the Shoevortex, it always leads me back to Uncle Phil and the song that will forevermore linger on my nerve endings like the chicken pox virus, just waiting to take me back to those pillowy mounds.

Language is a virus from outer space, y'all.
posted by sonascope at 8:39 AM on April 17, 2016

I also quite like Where Do You Think You're Going In That?

Tattoos are of the dev-ihl.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:23 AM on April 18, 2016