Kid shot in ass in argument over sagging pants

Is it wrong that I think “well, at least he’ll start pulling up his pants when someone tells him to”? (Link)

Am I wrong to say, ‘That’ll learn him.’ :smiley:

Only if they’re his Kevlar pants.

I flat don’t understand the anger that sagging pants brings out in people. So his pants are sagging - so what? It shows less skin than bathing suits. It seems to impede movement less than really high heels. I get that some people think it looks stupid, but that’s generally true of all fashion. Whence the violent hatred?

It all stems from the same pool of “My opinions are more valuable than yours” and is bolstered by “Other people in my group agree with me”.

Be it little or large, a dislike over low pants, or black people are stupid, people be having some mad ego problems yo! :eek:

You know, I really don’t know why it inflames me the way it does- I generally recognize it as being beneath my need to notice, and don’t comment unless someone else does first…

But I do, for some reason, feel an intense hatred of the action of walking around with your pants sagging so much that you need to hold the waist with one hand while walking to keep them from falling completely off.

I think it has to do with having had pants that oversized myself, and being forced to walk that way, and hating it…

I just cannot comprehend why someone would want to. The explaination that it is a jail expression meaning you want sex (presumable homosexual) makes even less sense to me, as these are usually homophobic young men with a huge macho display urge…

Ah, well, I don’t participate in their cultural displays, and they don’t figure into mine, ususally…

I am not sure if this is factually true but my best understanding is that this “fashion” came about in prisons. Specifically that prisons would issue more of less generic sizes and forbid belts. so sagging ensued. People on the outside (ie other gang members) would then wear their pants that way in solidarity.

So when people see this they think “thug”.

Very strange, indeed. You’d think that in Tennessee people would appreciate kids emulating Stringbean Akeman! :confused:

Ugliest. Bullseye. Ever.

It’s ugly, it’s got to be uncomfortable, and I think it would have gone away by now except that the young’uns know it pisses us off. Which pisses me off. :slight_smile:
Also, more than once I’ve been treated to the sight of some guy’s hairy buttcrack as his pants sagged off.

Please see Post #7 (except for the solidarity part) so this urban legend can die the death it deserves. The look basically came about simply as a matter of prisoners being issued any uniform that fit and the oversized version caught on. Nothing more thought out, inteliigent or signal-conscious than that.

As much as I hate the look in general, people have a right to pretty much wear their clothes however they want to. It’s quite obvious there’s an element of racism in the angry reactions to the look, even it’s mainly corollated to class and urban environment practice. For someone to go so far as to order someone not under their authority (and I’m not taking about the LEOs I’ve seen on the internet using fake laws for harassment purposes) to pull up their pants is supid enough. To actually get to the point of shooting someone is insane and I hope law enforcement throws the book at this idiot.

I did find this video funny though (if it’s not fake).

I’m pretty sure none of us actually support the shooter in this.

It probably has a lot to do with the high correlation between sporting this style and being an aggressively stupid punk, generally making a nuisance of yourself.

I’m sure there are plenty of nice young men that feel the need to wear their pants below their ass, but I don’t recall ever seeing one. The ones with the sagging pants tend to be the ones being too loud in public in their attempts to convince everyone in the immediate vicinity that they are hard and dangerous, while generally just annoying the hell out of everyone in exactly the same way that a bubble-headed teenage girl annoys everyone around them in their attempts to broadcast to everyone immediately around them that they are popular and socially active.

Apart from that, I am hard pressed to think of another general fashion trend that is remotely in the same ballpark when it comes to being offensively, obtrusively, and unforgivably ugly. Crocs in public, maybe – but that doesn’t elicit quite the same level of vitriol, because you have the impression that public Croc-wearers just don’t give a crap how they look or what anyone thinks about them. Not really a “fashion trend” so much as “I’m wearing novelty items on my feet because I don’t know any better.”

Yes.

Besides which, the lesson to be learned here isn’t “pull up your pants when someone tells you to,” it’s “be afraid of crazy people with guns,” which is really a lesson that all of us should take to heart, I think.

A ‘stringbean’ from the outside

X-ray view of same

I kinda wonder what would happen to this fashion statement if we reacted to it by laughing? Because, frankly, that’s what it evokes from me. Oh yeah, you’re cool, you’re bad… :smiley:

To top it off it’s an old style anyway. In high school c. 1972 I can remember the fashion among surfers. Most of my brother’s friends (with whom I hung out) wore loose-waisted pants (blue jeans and cords, mostly) that would barely hang onto the crest of their buttocks. They were normal length pants so the bottom hem would end up stepped on and chewed up. Boxers were de rigeur for underwear and worn at the waist so that they showed.
No big deal.

Pants today are definitely baggier in the legs and I’ve seen some guys wearing their pants waist below their buttocks. A little different, but still an old style.

As for this shooting: Crikey, the guy’s only forty-five. You need to get older than that before you use deadly force in fashion enforcement and be overly protective of your lawn.

Something I’ve noticed recently are jeans with the pockets set lower, so that they look like they’re riding low.

I wasn’t around in 1972, when you say it was in, but I was in college in 1992 when it got really popular. Which means that it’s been continuously in style for 20 YEARS! How many trends hang on that long? I’m befuddled by it.

And it’s no longer a thug look only. I work at a community college and half the guys have their pants hanging down–the majority of them are not trying to look thuggish at all. My student assistant wears his pants like that–though only a couple of inches down–and is otherwise a model of young manhood, with beautiful manners, and always punctual, and everything. :stuck_out_tongue: (No really, he is.)

I also see hilarious variations on the style. The other day I saw a kind of pudgy guy wearing jeans that looked like he’d borrowed his little brother’s jeans–they were short and tight and didn’t look like they could be pulled up. He had to walk like a penguin.

How do you know that?