My little sister who is 11 loves flip flops. She literally has about 10-20 pairs of them and that's all she ever wears. In a week she will be going into 6th grade and starting middle school. We went school shopping for her to get her basic needs like notebooks, pens/pencils, clothes, shoes, etc. When it came to shoes she didn't pick out any new sneakers like she had done in previous years she picked out 3 pairs of flip flops from hollister and 6 pairs from old navy adding onto the flip flops that she already has these are going to be her school pairs. She wants to wear flip flops everyday until it gets cold than switch to boots and back to flip flops once the weather gets warmer. As for gym shoes she will be using her nike sneakers from last year for gym. 10 years ago when I was in 6th grade I wore mostly sneakers I didn't have that many flip flops I had 2 or 3 at most and I only wore them to school every so often but not a lot. I didn't start wearing them to school a lot until I was in my freshman or sophmore year of high school she's only starting 6th grade. So are preteen girls(to me I'd say 10-12 year olds) more obsessed with flip flops than they were 5-10 years ago?