It’s like one of those potato-bag races…
Actually, I came in here to mention your thread, Happy. It was great.
It’s enough that you share my sentiments. Makes me feel all warm inside.
I pass by my old high school often around 3:00ish, when they get out. I love watching the boys (they all look so young!) running across the street in their baggy low pants. They pick them up just like young ladies in hoop skirts! It’s so dainty!
What I want to know is: what about chafing?
We have a fellow here at work who is seriously into the baggy pants thing. He is also a fellow of substance…every time I see him walk by, I always wonder what he does for chafing.
I hear Gold Bond Powder is good.
That would be the best punishment ever.
Hey Happy, in regards to your Pit thread … you weren’t outside the Loews Wayne theaters, were you? 
'Cause I see that every damn time I go to the movies.
I doubt it for some reason.
Oh yeah… the reason is that I’ve seen the phrase Rock Out With Your Cock Out like four different times in four different places this past week.
I first read the phrase in a porn mag several years ago. But I believe it’s about to claim its hundredth monkey and achieve its 15 minutes of fame.
And then be stuck in the modern collective subconscious along with Where’s the Beef and Who let the dogs out?.
I believe “Rock out with your cock out” was recently given new life by Mr Spears (aka Kevin Federline). Every time I see a picture of him, he’s wearing a fugly hat with that slogan on it.
The reason why some people think that sagged jeans don’t look good is because of people that don’t follow the simple rules or take sagging to the extreme.
You gotta do it right or don’t do it at all. 
I’m sorry to break this to you, kid, but there’s no right way. It’s just stupid.
Are you rolling your eyes at me? You better not be giving me a stare, because I will beat you down.
Punks these days. They think us old-school bastards don’t know what to do with a tire chain.
I’m not that old, but my instinctive reaction to guys dressed like this is irreparably based on the fact that if I had seen someone dressed like this when I was growing up ('60s and early’70s), I would have known with 100% certainty that they were severely mentally handicapped and had dressed themself without supervision that morning. Ditto with the backwards baseball cap.
Draelin: It was Clifton Commons, actually. But I’m not surprised about Wayne.
And START, I’m really, REALLY sorry, but the only way to look good in sagged jeans is to take them off and put on pants that fit.
Exgineer, I beg to differ. The correct old-school way is to put your combat boot in his chest, then drag the heel down the body so that the pants are stuck at the knees. Then he’s hurting and hobbled and you can effectively pick and choose impact points for your “hurt-you” knuckles and your feet.
I’d like to show these kids video of “hard” kids from the eighties wearing fluorescent pink parachute pants.
swish swish swish swish swish swish
“Hey, look at this guy. Pretty cool, eh? Tough look, right?”
“That’s totally lame!”
“Yeah, well, he thought he looked pretty cool, because cynical marketing bastards in reasonable looking suits that dictate fashion for the mentally challenged have a cruel sense of humour, and never get tired of making really stupid people easy to make out a distance. Say, where you get those pants? Nice.”
You got to give the kids credit. It was incredibly hard to come up with a more stupid way to dress than the way we dressed in the '60s and early '70s.
I was born in 1959. When I went to high school, tight-fitting pants were the style. Some of us carried it to extremes, and would no doubt be embarrassed if someone today has photos. So I try not to be too judgemental to kids today. Peer pressure can be lethal.
Today, I still favor good-fitting pants (Levi 501 jeans for the last 10+ years), but comfortable: e.g., this morning, I crawled behind a printer to fish a wire out. I was one of the older persons present, for the record.
Why do people wear the clothes they do? Well, the answer certainly varies with age. In high school, the primary goal was to get girls to think you were cool (at least for me). To reiterate, peer pressure played a big role in this.
For me today, the answer is a combination of comfort, simplicity, durability, image at work, and a little bit of image away from work. (I’m single, I play music in bars at night, and I chase women. There’s some peer pressure in the mix, but not like in 1977).
That said…
I cannot, for the life of me, understand why anyone would want to wear pants that they couldn’t run up a flight of stairs if they had to, too tight or too loose.
But I just don’t see why anyone would wear ridiculously-baggy pants, unless it’s pure peer pressure – you don’t look good in them, you look like an overgrown toddler who’s had an accident.
I have wondered if it’s a phenomenon that actor Michael Caine mentioned in describing his work in Zulu – his character was an aristocratic British army officer, who spoke slowly and walked around with his hands clasped behind his back.
Caine’s reasoning was that high-station people can do these things: they can talk slowly because people will listen to them; and they don’t use their hands when they talk because people are already paying enough attention to them.
Possibly, someone wearing pants too baggy to run in is trying to look like they’re too tough (or cool) to have to run?
Or maybe not.
In closing, I don’t think anyone has ever topped P.J. O’Rourke’s comment on the subject: “Pull your pants up, turn your hat around and get a job”
that is close to my theory: male birds have such bright colors and huge plumage because it attracts females, right? Well, the reason these things are attractive is that it makes them more visible to predators. If they can survive being a target, they are worthy to mate with.
I see the baggy pants as a kind of peacock’s tail- “I can’t run away from a fight! Do me!”
Also, “Don’t ever do it. Ever. No matter what.”
Christ do you guys look stupid to everyone else.
I agree that the saggy pants look looks ridiculous. Of course, so did poodle skirts and bell bottoms and jeans tucked into legwarmers (don’t even get me started on feathered hair) and the grunge look.
Every generation goes through their own style. And a big part of the driving force is looking exactly the way the older people don’t want you to look. Eventually they’ll grow up, get jobs, take their hats off altogether and conform to more… normal appearances. But if they’re kids, and they’re not hurting anyone, who cares?
I take it you’re not a Talking Heads fan, then?