In American cartoons and live action comedy you often see male characters who are meant to be old or are acting old wearing high waisted trousers. Is this a reflection of how elderly American men dress or is it something along the lines of the butcher chasing after a dog that stole a string of sausages?
I’ve seen it referred to in American Dad, The Simpsons, New Girl and plenty of other shows. The Simpsons has made multiple references to it.
Definitely based on style of dress, with slacks pulled up to just under the ribs. Helps if they’re using suspenders.
When men get older, they tend to get a roll of fat around the waist. The rest of their measurements stay the same so any older pants - or even new pants of the same waist size - will fit correctly everywhere but at the waist. There are two ways to deal with this. You can let your gut hang over the top of the waist or you can pull the waist up so high that it stays put by being above the bulge. Some comedian defined this as Texas style vs. Florida style, IIRC.
It’s a lot harder to do this with jeans so fewer men are doing “pull it high”. That emphasizes the age of anyone still using the technique. Pretty soon it’ll be a gag that lives on only in cartoons and people will write into the Dope asking what the real-world analog was.
I honestly can’t say I’ve ever seen it in Ireland.
My father is 80 and he mentioned that he’s lost several inches in height. (Although this might, in part, be due to back surgery.) So if an older man is losing height but wearing the same unaltered pants, they’re going to ride high.
At least some of it is that the fashion in the past was for high waisted men’s trousers.
Take a look at some random photos of WII era GIs standing with their shirts tucked in, or photos of Pattonor MacArthur and you’ll see that the fashion in the 30s/40s was for very high waisted trousers. And of course the zoot suittook that to an extreme.
As people age, they tend to get stuck in the fashion of their youth. So a lot of old men in the 70s-90s were wearing high waisted trousers simply because that was what was fashionable when they were young.
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There was an ad on tv here a while ago, can’t remember what it was for, it featured a bunch of old guys sitting around with their pants way up high laughing at some teenagers who wore theirs way too baggy. the kids were also laughing at the old guys
We called the “wino pants” in the 70’s because back the. The Goodwill an Salvation Army stores were full of cast-off high waist wool trousers.
The old man meme started in the 80’s when the old guys clung to them. But, perhaps proud of their zoot suiter heritage, young Mexican guys still wore them too. Yor remember that? Hairnet, high pants, plaid flannel pants with one button at the neck.
About 30 years ago I went to a local clothing store for suit pants. The tailor told me that trousers are supposed to be worn on the waist, belly-button high. To me that seems pretty high up.
I always wear my jeans and other pants on the hips. No way am I going to wear them belly-button high ::shudder::
I wear mine at my belly button but that’s probably cos I’m a big fatso, seems like the right place for them.
From O Brother, Where Art Thou, Pappy O’Daniel and his entourage rocked high waisted trousers designed to ride above their potbellies.
Now that’s what I call taking high waisted to an extreme 
If you watch old movies, you’ll see relatively trim, attractive men wearing pants very high up.
I think it’s mostly a matter of older men not choosing to change their look.
If you’re acting your age, it seems sensible: pretending to be younger than you are has its own problems, and for many men there’s no upside to it.
On parts of the internet that I regularly visit, there is a great deal of money spent and ingenuity used to obtain proper high-waisted trousers. Because, and I say this as one who owns a few pair of high-waisted trousers, they are the best kind of trousers there is.
For instance. Sadly, I can’t really justify paying for that level of trousery goodness, but if I had the funds, I surely would.
And that’s not even mentioning high-waisted women’s jeans/trousers, which is a whole other world of goodness.
Wouldn’t they just be longer around the ankles?
Losing inches in height means it must disappear from somewhere, and it’s your spine. That gives the illusion of pants length being disproportionate to your upper body.
Check out Benny Goodman, 1937:
It was definitely the style at one point.
From a 1936 Speigel catalog:
