The reality about Australia’s barefoot culture  

i live in the uk and i hardly ever wear shoes i hate them, why people are interested in my feet i will never understand

People scared of bare foot are the same people scared of rain.

Barefoot is common in my local area, you do see it around town, in shops etc, were semi subtropical a 13klm drive from the beach, Mid North Coast NSW. Sure not while working or clubs/pubs etc and sure the climate dictates, and sure some venues it's a done deal to wear shoes.. it's definitely not fawn upon, not in our neck of the woods anyway.

Including myself I see people barefoot all the time and not just in the beachside suburbs. I was in Liverpool west Sydney yesterday and I saw two people walking into a servo bare foot. A lot of Aussies deny there is a barefoot culture because they either don't get out much or are too ashamed to admit we go barefoot so attempt to convince foreigners it's just a myth. I go anywhere barefoot including shopping or just walking the dog and dingo even in winter.

I AM BAREFOOT 50/50 BUT IT DEPENDS ON WHERE IM GOING AND FOR WHAT I CHECK THE LETTERBOX BAREFOOTED I GO TOO DINNER WEARING SHOES WE ARE AT THE END OF MAY SO NO SURPRISE U DID NOT SEE ANY1 BAREFOOT (I STILL CHECK THE LETTERBOX BAREFOOTED )

Summer in Queensland the road tarmac almost melts & the ground is way too hot to go barefoot.

I reckon all the footage of barefoot shoppers is taken in supermarkets at coastal surfing locations

Beachy places...sure...everywhere else...nah.

We go barefoot in New Zealand quite often. I mean, no-one is showing up to work without shoes, but it's not unusual to see people, especially kids, going barefoot in the summer. I don't know why it's such a big deal, they're just feet. My Irish father hated it, apparently it's a class thing in Ireland, but Mum, a Kiwi, told him to chill, it's perfectly normal for kids to take their shoes off whenever possible.

ya wont get served in a pub barefooted , even near the beach , you will be confronted with signs saying "no shoes no shirt no service"

Barefoot means being in touch with Mother Earth, it's a spiritual thing.

we often went barefoot in primary school, to and from school and barefoot in all school athletics carnivals...the 1970's....ah freedoms

There is more barefoot in NT and the smaller towns.

Not sure if my replies get seen because almost every reply comment I give is usually blocked or deleted by RU-vid which I've also noticed a few others are complaining about also.

You'll see people going barefoot in the streets around a beach. Otherwise no; people wear shoes.

Goi g Barfoot stops the mushrooms growing between the toes

It is not seen so much these days but some pubs had signs at the door - 'No bare feet.' When I was younger it was quite common to walk into a public bar and most of the patrons would be barefoot; including me. Tradies would take their boots off and go barefoot. No footwear must be worn in most bars/pubs and in many cases this will simply be thongs (flip flops, jandles whatever). I live on the Sunshine Coast and my grandchildren are following after their parents and grandparents and go barefoot as much as possible. We keep a set of thongs in the car, in case we need em.

I think it's dependant on your background. If your rural, from the bush or grew up right on the beach every weekend then your more then comfortable barefoot doing basic tasks like running down the servo or running quickly into the shops etc. Not likely if it's a planned even like a few hours shopping or going out for dinner etc. How you live socially will impact this also, people of the so called bogan persuasion are more likely to do it then prove school educated wealthy. The thing is from what I can tell even these situations are far more common then over seas, especially Europe. Personally I never ever wear shoes at home, inside or outside. If I need to run down the road or pop in the servo or woollies for something quick I won't put on shoes.

I see barefoot people regularly but not all that many in our regional town , much less in the cities, dutch immigrants wondered where they had come to when they saw barefoot people here thinking they can't even afford shoes , in my first week here in the 80ties we were going to a concert but we were refused entry because of our lack of footwear and I was furious my aussie mates weren't aware of that beforehand, I once hitchhiked from India to the Netherlands all barefoot sometimes through the snow , Kashmir and Turkye and I didn't hurt me too much

A classic case of a storm in a tea cup. My mother told me tales of my youth where between the ages of 2 to 5 I would refuse to wear shoes and the only clothes I would wear were swimming togs and would complain if I had to dress in any other attire. This all changed when I started to go to school.

I used to be bare foot all the time, only wore shoes was when I had labs at uni

Certain minority aspects of Australian culture (or lack thereof) has become fashionable. Not everyone goes barefoot, feel the need to put tomato sauce on a pie, put chicken salt on fish n chips (yuk, doesn’t match flavourwise!) but saying those things out loud you get called Un Australian.

I accidentally went out without shoes the other day. It felt weird walking on concrete barefoot.

Children with no shoes on 'do better in classroom', major study … Children who learn with no shoes on are more likely to behave better and obtain good grades than peers with footwear, a decade-long study has revealed. Who knew? 😂😂😂

It is not normal.

I'm 63 and only wear shoes/footwear when I absolutely have to I even go downtown barefoot, although I always carry a pair of thongs in my bag for special occasions, like lunch etc And no, I'm not a bogan feral. Just like being barefoot... Barefoot bowls anyone?

I’m on the northern beaches. Lots of bare foot people, and those in bikinis / swim wear at shops. The kids even do their athletics carnivals without shoes.

Why would you give the side eye its a free country you want to wear shoes fine, but why judge, this being offended is getting out of hand and has to be stamped out, no pun intended

its pension time for that academic.

I am sick of backpackers saying that everyone don’t wear shoes . Only people are barefooted around the beaches . In Sydney 99 percent of people wear shoes .That man is British .

Where I live in Northern Sydney, its extremely common to see people barefoot at shops, markets, fast food places etc. In summer it would sometimes be a majority of guys under 40. I've been to other parts of Sydney and seen lots of barefoot people as well. The BBC video was filmed in the Illawarra where it's very normal, too. I also visited the Gold Coast last year and it was very common. I disagree it's a "bogan" thing. Melbourne/Victoria is not the whole of Australia.

Where I live north of Sydney going into a supermarket barefoot marks you squarely as a bogan (of which we have quite a few around here). Though nothing beats the time in a local town supermarket that the woman with the trolley in front of me was not only barefoot, but decided to spit in the middle of the aisle. Classy.

From Adelaide. I don't see anyone going barefoot. Maybe it's different in Queensland and the NT.

Your feet toughen up when you dont were shoes.l could sprint on roads no problem .l didn't wear shoes much in summer uptil about 40 years old l had a few acidents stood on a few broken bottles so l do wear shoes now .when I'm out n about but not on the beach.

I only go barefoot at the beach, I refuse to use thongs, they are a blight on humanity. Inside the house I wear slip-on shoes because otherwise all the dead skin from your feet distributes itself around the house. Around the yard I wear steel capped work boots because "who wants to get bitten by a snake" right. I regularly see Eastern Browns and Red Belly Blacks.

its not a cultural thin g. that remark is rubbish. might happen at the beach or camping. but not usual.

personal choice when and where.

no shoes at5 work is prob illegal from OHS rules.

Thank you so much for making this video. It's been driving me up the wall that this is a stereotype. I have lived in Sydney all my life and now live in Hobart. I have been to other areas in Australia, and I do not think I will get away with saying ''G'day c*nt'' and walking around barefooted as freely as this stupid stereotype suggests. So thank you!

Yes

i dont even go barefoot in the house.

id like to see a barefoot eskimo.

I think you're missing the mark a bit (not completely) in this video, and your limited experience of living in Victoria (I assume) shows. Perhaps to the same degree as these academics and pundits try to represent their limited experience as "all of Australia". I have lived in four states and territories (about to be five). The Australian "bear foot" meme is exaggerated, but it is a thing, and enough of a thing to be noticeable to outsiders. I see bear-footedness as emanating from the beach and beach culture as alluded to in this video and in your comments. However it spreads a lot further from the beach than can be explained by purely practical reasons, and along the east coast of Australia, from Cairns to Batemans Bay, you will find the odd bare foot 5km, 10km, 15km inland (with decreasing frequency the further you go, and increasing side-eyes from people who may look twice). On display not just by people in board shorts with a towel slung over their shoulder, but by people merely dressed casually and going about their daily deeds. Personally, I grew up 1km from the beach and I must confess from the ages of 12 to my early 20's me and my friends often just walked around bearfoot, even when we hadn't been near the beach for weeks. We only owned shoes for going to school in, and for going away in the car with the family. I'd walk to the shops and carry two bags of groceries home barefoot, and a good percentage of the people I met along the way would be the same. Your feet get tougher from doing it, and I used to pride myself on the fact I could walk over an oyster bed at low tide without shoes on and not cut myself. Sections of gravel road with sharp little stones, or the burning-hot bitumen on summer days were a source of some discomfort to all of us but you also get used to it and as a point of teenaged, macho principle I used to tackle these obstacles without changing my gait, limping, or letting any grimace or wince cross my face. I lived in Melbourne for 10 years and it's virtually unseen down there. In Sydney, in the beach and bay suburbs (Manly, Botany, Coogee, Randwick etc) it's very common, again by people who don't look at have actually been at the beach. So yeah, I definitely think it's a thing. But the exaggeration is that 90% of Aussies do it, 90% of the time, that it's done all over Australia, and that you can go to work, school, events, upmarket shops with no shoes on.

How old are you Cheeky, I am over 60 and started life in Parramatta. Aussie's have been going barefoot everywhere and anywhere for my whole life. I was a supermarket manager for over 20 yrs. Stores from the Snowy to the tropics and as far west as Bourke. People without shoes at all of them. Oldies are always jealous of the young or the young at heart. Just like my Grandmother, stick to the clean undies and hankies line and leave the poor barefooted alone. If ya got the pins, show more than ya shins. lol 🦘🐨🦶

Her comments are ridiculous 🙄 we love bare feet & I live down south 🤪

Never leave home without shoes if it was hot I would wear thongs

At the beach,lakes and rivers, inside the home and in home and public gardens are the only times we go barefoot, sometimes. No one walks on burning hot concrete and asphalt, sharp gravel and grass infested with sharp burs and bindi without footware.

😅😅😅 Aussies LOVE BARE FEET & we go everywhere bare feet 😅 Aussies also mostly live near beaches ⛱ & up north hot enough all year ! Listening to this judgemental commentary is laughable 😅 up north jobs are mostly around tourism mmmm beaches , rainforest, ect & barefoot ! These story tellers are just saying BS !

im sorry, barefoot is not Australian culture. Its just people playing to the myth. walk around barefoot in Australia as a matter of course you soon going to find yourself in hospital.

Walking barefoot in a store or pub is usually banned because the proprietors don;t want the hassle of being sued if someone is injured. I tend to think of the hygiene aspect of some grub bringing all sorts of street crap in. I was in the ER Dept or Taree Hospital a few weeks back and a young bogun wandered in barefoot and filthy.

going barefoot is dangerous and only bogans do it.

i think if you go to the shops barefoot you will soon come up against an insurance issue.

im sorry . its bogans ...

Never seen it in all my years

I am usually barefoot. I don't like wearing shoes or thongs. I remember when I was growing up in Qld, bars and things required shoes after 6 PM.

Only poor low-income people go out in public barefoot, its dirty dangerous and disgusting

I walk without shoes all the time,i do live on the coast tho.. If i was to do that in land (forbes) where i was born i would end up getting hard wooden bindi's,your foot bleeds when you pull them out quite painful especially a foot full of them...