The Depressing Future of Sock Puppets: My Predictions
100% plausible and 48% pun free (but how can you not? Put yourself in my shoes!).
BY: NOAH FARBERMAN
Photo by Ryanne Kap // THE UNDERGROUND
Most things change; technology grows exponentially, Coca Cola finds new ways to pretend they’re eco-friendly, and governments collapse. But on the rare occasion that something seems to be “set in stone” it makes me wonder. First people believed in religion and that was it. That was the truth. But then: science. The new update to religion! People argue that science is the last step, but what’s next? What is coming after science? The same question can be asked about another invention that hasn’t changed since it “clicked.”
That invention being: The Sock Puppet.
A brief history of sock puppets: In the 11th century B.C. puppets were sticks in Asia. Meanwhile, around 750 B.C. the Greeks and Romans were fighting over the invention of the sock. The Greek’s thought that animal fur could be stuffed into shoes to create cushioning while the Roman’s thought they could steal that idea and used thick fabrics instead.
Across the world and almost a millennium later, 12 A.D., Egyptians invented knitting. With all the pieces in play—the notion of a puppet, the fluid purpose of the sock, and the new medium of creation—it was just a matter of time until the idea found its footing.
Photo by Noah Farberman // THE UNDERGROUND
Sock puppets haven’t changed much in form since then, although the materials have shifted. What were once buttons and hay stitching soon became buttons and thread stitching, which eventually segued into the form of sock puppet we know today: the googly eye and glue edition. With what appears to be its final form (as it has not changed since the invention of the googly eye) the artform found its wide acclaim in the form of the Muppets, a 1960s emotional drama about one man’s failure to break into the sock industry. But it appeared that sock puppets had found their final “perfect” form.
Today: sock puppets are sock puppets. Socks decorated to resemble the iconographic image of a face in order to put on plays or teach lessons through the surrogate voice of a hand-controlled being, whose shell is that of a sock (regular puppets also exist but those are dying out soon, I can tell). Sock puppet decorations include googly eyes, mini hats, buttons, pipe cleaners, fake mustaches, lipstick, fake eyebrows, markers, and anything else your little hands can put together. Because puppets can be operated with a single hand (even though socks are meant for feet; people use their hands to operate sock puppets, the fold where their fingers close acting as the puppet’s mouth) a puppeteer’s other hand can be used to operate miniature props for the puppet. Props can be pretty much anything as long as it’s small and within reason for the specific puppet to have (a historical puppet wouldn’t have a Steam Whistle beer because that brewery didn’t open until the year 2000).
Photo by Noah Farberman // THE UNDERGROUND
It might seem absurd to think that some things can’t and won’t change, but as we’ve seen time and time again, those little laws we call “reality” can shift as much as a tectonic plate. Here are three predictions I have about those shifting plates called sock puppets.
Sock Puppets will be controlled primarily by feet. This one seems pretty obvious. As we traverse past the post-post-modern and into the new era I will dub “The New Genuine,” we are going to see a resurgence of the intended purposes of many objects. First we are going to see it in the stories we tell. No longer will ekphrasis and self-awareness rule the streets. We are going to cycle back around to truly new stories. Then we are going to see the same as the Earth Blooms, providing us with new forms of nature to rediscover.
Finally, when society re-reaches our current stages, we are going to see those same everyday entertainments we love repurposed to fit their intended original uses. Sock puppets will be worn as socks. Instead of a fold at the fingers symbolizing the mouth, the sock puppet will take on the traditional form of the alligator or crocodile, with the toes resembling teeth and the floor representing the bottom of the mouth. Therefore, in order for a sock puppet to “speak” it will need to hinge itself to the floor at the heel and lift the toe half of the foot up and down, like a beak or an alligator/crocodile mouth.
This new form will provide many new opportunities as well. Instead of googly eyes, sock puppets will need a little ball on which the google eyes can be propped up on. And instead of props, we will just see people wearing two sock puppets at a time; those two sock puppets may be friends, in a relationship, or just work colleagues. All that is left up to the puppet style of any given puppeteer. I predict this will all come true by the year 2500.
The Sock Puppet industry will receive a massive windfall of acclaim after being wrongfully cancelled. In 2065, the trial on the offensive nature of the “sock puppet” will reach its Supreme Court verdict. The initial claim being that sock puppets are so closely linked to a certain solo act that their existence can be harmful and insensitive. After the 14-year trial, it will be decreed that the positive benefits of sock puppets outweigh the connotations. Judge Rogers will be quoted as stating “Sock puppets are not the same thing as masturbation socks. And any crossover should be dealt with on a case by case basis. I award the case to the defendant and fine the Puppet’s Alliance 14 trillion dollars in damages to be paid directly to the unfortunately named Sock Puppet Special Release Fund Mmmmyeah.”
Photo by Noah Farberman // THE UNDERGROUND
Fourteen hundred people will be killed at the mouths of sock puppets due an unfortunate and very slow to be resolved loophole in the new USCE constitution. In 2055, when the American-Canadian-Ethiopian constitution is finalized, a great many criminals will take advantage of a loophole found by a lawyer only six months after the constitution's implementation. The loophole combines two of the amendments found in the new constitution.
The first of those amendments dictates that “All things that exist may be alive.” A second amendment reads, “No human being possesses the right to physically harm, maim, murder, or insult any other human.” It was a surprise, after the first instance of a sock puppet shooting hearing, to learn the Supreme Court’s ruling was, based on the new US-Canada-Ethiopia constitution, that any crime committed by a sock puppet controlled by a person who can prove the sock puppet they were wielding has enough pizazz and personality to be its own real living thing cannot technically face any charges, and subsequently, since sock puppets are not human, they can not be charged either. It will take until 2100 for the courts to finally amend the constitution.
I wish that I had more positive predictions, but as the sun sets on the happy ignorance we once shared, so does that dream of a better future. Of course I would be happy to see the quality of respect and life be heightened so drastically in coming decades, and I will always be happy to see a crocodile sock puppet, and I really hope those aspects of my predictions are the only true ones. But in case they aren’t, for the time being I’m just going to try and enjoy the little things by playing with my sock puppet alone in my room with the door closed. Do not disturb.
