- Christi Fritz and her husband have gone viral on TikTok for chopping the soles off their sneakers to go barefoot.
- Their skewering of influencer tradition is so pitch-perfect that the majority viewers do not realize it is satire.
- The Fritzes know that outrage on TikTok might be profitable.
“My husband and I have removed the bottoms of all our shoes,” Christi Fritz says in a voiceover of their most viral TikTok video, with 56 million views. The video reveals her husband, Seth Fritz, utilizing a small noticed software, to chop via the rubber on a sneaker, whereas Christi extols the virtues of going barefoot.
“We decided to start walking barefoot,” Christi explains. (“Grounding” or “earthing” is a Gwenyth Paltrow-endorsed follow meant to commune with nature by strolling barefoot on the soil. There are, certainly, “grounding” influencers.)
But the couple had encountered an issue. In an earlier video, Christi was kicked out of a Sephora for missing sneakers. “Since some businesses don’t want us being completely barefoot, if we cut off the bottoms of our shoes, we can blend in with everyone else.”
The couple places on their sole-less sneakers — Christi mentions that their complete shoe assortment is price $20,000 — and walks again confidently right into a Sephora.
The feedback went wild. “Did you guys also remove the part of your brain that says not to do this?” wrote one particular person.
“so..why? ¯_(ツ)_/¯” wrote the official account for Wendy’s UK.
The Fritzes have been, in actual fact, joking. The vastly viral video was a part of an extended set of deftly executed satire they have been doing on TikTok.
“I would consider it comedy. I guess other people like to see it as satire,” Christi informed Business Insider.
“These videos kept getting more ridiculous. But no matter how ridiculous they were, people believed it, and they still got mad,” Seth stated. “So, it’s like, we could do anything.”
I first got here throughout the Fritzes in a video the place Christi talks about how they’d set themselves a $20,000 finances for vacation presents for his or her younger kids.
At first watch, I seethed. How dare they?! The hair on the again of my neck stood up. My blood boiled. I watched once more — wait, is that this a joke? I wasn’t positive. I scrolled via their web page, searching for clues.
Christi, 27, is blonde and delightful, her outfits are fashionable in that Gen Z manner, and her kids are cute. Seth, 24, performs the position of the practically silent vlog husband.
Many of the movies on their web page are of Christi doing “Get ready with me” movies or enjoying with the youngsters.
Everything aesthetically in regards to the Fritzes suggests they’re real social media personalities — besides the outlandish stuff.
I lastly grew to become satisfied that they have been pulling a prank solely after I watched their video about shopping for their 4- and 1-year-olds an iPhone to avoid wasting till they turned 16.
When a good friend, somebody who’s normally extraordinarily savvy about with the ability to sniff out a troll, despatched me the shoe-removal video, I spotted the Fritzes have been working on an entire new degree.
Their satire is so scrumptious as a result of it skewers the form of senseless consumption that permeates social media: influencers flaunting their wealth and boring tastes — everybody with the identical overpriced Stanley cup, Lululemon sweatshirt, and Dior lip oil.
Seth and Christi met in highschool however did not begin courting till after they graduated. (Christi was a couple of grades forward of Seth, and he held a secret crush on her.) Seth did a stint within the army, and now they reside within the suburbs of Cleveland with their two younger kids.
They’ve informed me they have been making their dwelling from social media for the final three years, primarily via TikTok, which pays creators in varied methods.
Initially, Christi would submit TikToks of herself dancing or different anodyne content material. She constructed up a small following. But then they stumbled into one thing more practical: outrage.
“We’ve been doing TikTok for so long; we’ve studied the algorithm and just know what to say, when to say it, and how people will react,” Christi says. “We put a lot of thought into it — where we’ll go, what would do well.”
“People think we’re rage-baiting for attention. But really, we’re rage-baiting because we’re grinding to get money,” Christi explains.
In a follow-up to their viral barefoot video, the Fritzes stroll down the streets of downtown Cleveland barefoot and into the general public library.
In one horrifying shot, Seth makes use of his toes to enter his ATM password. “It’s more like, we’ve always kind of been grinders,” Seth stated.