Lol. Yeah, I know what they are and what they're actually used for. I was just being snarky.

The phrase is misused. It was originally used as a satirical reference to doing the impossible because bootstraps are used to pull a particular type of boots on. You literally can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

I don't know where or how the expression got turned around to mean pull yourself out of hardship, but people who demand the poor pull themselves up by their bootstraps are idiots.