After the rather odd, very amusing incident where an Iraqi reporter hurled his shoe at President Bush, inspiration/imitation struck a whole bunch of Flash programmers. Online games popped up everywhere that parodied/mocked the event. Some had you throwing shoes at the widely criticized president, others had you defending him from flying footwear. Some undoubtedly earned their creators a few dollars here or there from advertisements on their sites.

Alex Tew, a Brit who created SockAndAwe, has made a lot more money from his creation than anyone would expect. They put the game up on the Monday following the incident and in a short time their servers were overloaded with hits. They spent a few days trying to keep things going, but since they were supposed to be working on a new startup site, they put the domain and game up for auction on eBay. It was quickly purchased by British media firm Fubra for 5,215 Pounds, which translates to $7,818.