I'm of the belief that the contemporary existence of foot fetishes was the result of some shady scheme by some group (fuck knows who).
Yeah, yeah I know that there's examples erotica involving feet dating back as far back as ancient Greece, but hear me out:
In 1998, a study was carried out analysing porn magazines released between 1964 and 1994. They found that women's feet became a much larger focus when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was in the public consciousness and drew a comparison to a spike of foot fetishism in the European continent during the syphilis epidemic of the 19th century, concluding that foot fetishism is connected to fears of catching STIs.
I disagree, by focusing specifically on porn and not the larger cultural milieu, they had missed the mainstreaming of foot fetishism in the movies and TV that predates the epidemic.
MASH, held the record for the most watched episode of TV in its final episode (so big in fact, that there was a surge in toilets flushing shortly after the episode ended that did lasting damage to New York's sewer system). Now MASH is a comedy series that frequently falls back on joking about how foot obsessed its main cast is, to the point that one episode even has a subplot of Hawkeye being assigned to inspect everyone's feet and reveling in his fetish.
This is but one example, media of the time was full of the stuff. And it wasn't just you Americans who were being indoctrinated into worshipping at the altar of feet. You can find foot fetishism emerging in culture all around The West™ at the time.
Two questions, then, remain:
Who is responsible for this media blitz?
And,
Why did they do it?
My theory is that it was a collaboration between the CIA and MI5 to try to determine just how deep their propaganda can effect people by implanting a fetish into the larger public zeitgeist.
spoiler for Dark Souls 3
Ironically, it kinda looks like Anri of Astora in the usurpation of fire ending.