Tommy Shellby / Tortoise vs. Shoes

Submission 1,404

Part of a series on Animals. [View Related Entries]

About

Tommy Shellby is a pet tortoise owned by TikToker @phantoins that went viral online in 2022 thanks to viral videos in which it attacks black shoes and other black-colored objects by aggressively bumping into them. The videos were widely circulated online throughout 2022 and inspired jokes about the tortoise acting racist.

Origin

On April 12th, 2022, TikTok^[1] user @phatonions posted a video of his pet tortoise Tommy Shellby (a play on Tommy Shelby) walking up to his black shoe and attacking it by bumping into it with its shell. The video accumulated over 14.8 million views and 2.9 million likes on TikTok in seven months (shown below).

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7085827653986520326

On April 17th and 18th, @phatonions posted two more TikTok^[2]^[3] videos in which the tortoise reacted to an empty black shoe and was faced with a choice between a white and a black shoe. In both videos, the tortoise attacked the black shoe by repeatedly bumping into it. The TikToks (shown below, left and right) received over 2.1 million views and 1.9 million views, respectively, in seven months.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7087534868694912262

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7087895919965867269

Spread

in the following weeks, @phatonions posted more videos of Tommy Shellby interacting with shoes, always attacking black ones when given the opportunity. For example, on April 22nd, 2022, @phatonions posted^[4] a video that received over 27.2 million views and 3.3 million likes in seven months (shown below, left). On June 3rd, @phatonions posted^[5] a video in which he removes white tape from his black shoe, followed by the tortoise attacking it. The video garnered over 53.3 million views and 6.1 million likes in five months (shown below, right).

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7089372740624387334

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7105005285558799622

This and other videos posted by the user received further spread outside of TikTok through reposts. For example, on May 7th, 2022, Twitter^[6] user @nocontextdrumar shared one of phatonions' videos followed by his silent reaction. The post gained over 7.5 million views, 30,100 retweets and 221,400 likes in six months (shown below).