Sole Project Scam

In the 2010s there was a Tumblr user that ran a series of blogs, claiming to be an affiliate of Project Sole. Project Sole is an charitable organization based in Dallas, Texas, that was founded in 2009. They take donations of shoes and redistribute them to impoverished countries. However, the blog runner of the pages claiming to be affiliated with Project Sole, would launch Tumblr pages, with a naming scheme being a variation of the words "project" and "sole" as well as the date, and contact users claiming to be putting together a mural on behalf of Project Sole. The blog runner would request their participation and ask them to submit photos of their bare feet to be used for the mural, much in the same vein as TOMS ‘One Day Without Shoes’ 2015 Marketing Campaign. Users contacted by the blog runner would go on to make posts warning other users about the authenticity of the mural. One user noted, “I thought this nasty foot fetish scam ended in 2011....“ suggesting the claims go back before 2011 and extend until their most recent blog, thesoleproject2018.tumblr.com, suggesting their range of activity being 2011-2018. Users would be encouraged to report the current incarnation of the blog, resulting in its termination, and to warn other users to spread awareness of this Project Sole Mural Scam.

The original Sole Project blog was launched in May of 2014, under the username “soleproject” on Tumblr, as a body positivity campaign focusing on feet. The name being an apt title and self explanatory description of what it was. In 2014, the infamy the Project Sole Mural Scam had not gained the notoriety it would gain in the following years. The Sole Project blog featured posts encouraging viewers to submit photos of their feet to be posted to the page. As viewership grew and the blog gained attention, viewers would offer photography services as well as user submissions. Over the years, users would refer to the Project Sole Mural Scam as the Sole Project Scam, misattributing content produced by our models and photographers as the result of the Project Sole Mural Scam. In 2018, a Tumblr user unintentionally spread misinformation by warning other users that our page was related to the Project Sole Mural Scam, resulting in our blog's termination.