I have often wondered what the significance(and origin) of rolling up ones trouser leg to the knee for public display/protest is?, I have seen it mostly at hippie type events so I’m presuming it’s peace related.
The only thing I can think of is - if it’s the right leg, that person probably rode a bicycle there and didn’t bother/remember to uncuff the pant leg. (You can rub the right pant leg on the greasy chain and get it stained, so plenty of bicycle riders will cinch in or roll up the right pant leg while riding.)
Yes, that might explain some of the times I have seen it but I think there is more to it than that, I know that Freemasons have some sort of ritual or initation ceremony which involves rolling up your left trouser leg but I’m pretty sure that most of the people I seen in public have their right trouser leg rolled up and would have little interest in organized religion.
According to police, a rolled-up trouser leg can also be a gang sign. Whether it’s the right leg or left depends on the specific gang.
Robin
Done a bit of googling and this turned up
Apparently young black people do it to symbolized the shackles their ancestors had to wear
And with even more googling I got this which gives a few reasons for it
Now I’m wondering why people do it where I live…Japan
The rolled up trouser leg is also a significant part of Masonic ritual and has been so for over a century and a half (at least being GQ I don’t want to overstate).
If you google Mason and rolled up trouser leg you can find that, especially in the UK, this seems to be well enough know to be used in news featurettes without alot of explanation.
Gosh darn it, Masonry is not a religion! (Further, I have been in many Lodges that were not organized either.)
Huh? I thought it had to do with penis size and how you hung?
You not only beat me to the punch, you were much more polite than I had intended to be.
When I’ve seen this it has always been gang related or gang wanna-be’s.
Truthfully, this has been the only time I’ve seen it, as well.
Perhaps curiouscat has seen some Japanese imitating American gang culture?
Robin
You mean Like this Gang?
Ahh, Thanks for the correction,
I, in my ignorance thought that you needed to believe in a super natural being to sign up.
You do learn something new everyday don’t you.
In the social context which are the only times I’ve seen it done, it is intended as a quasi-humorous reaction to an actual or pretended claim of skills, facts, etc., with which the pants-leg-roller considers in error, exaggerated, etc., and symbolizes, “My, the shit’s getting deep in here!”
It’s nearly always simply a bicycle thing. You don’t want your pants caught in the chain, so you roll them up. At some points this look has caught on as a fashion, but I’m betting that 90% of the “gang members” sporting this look are simply young Black men getting around on bicycles.
Hereabouts, it is unequivocally (along with bandanas and wearing hats with the bill facing a particular way) a way to show affiliation with particular gangs.
Aren’t these gangs afraid a lodge of Masons will corner them and beat the crap out of them for poaching their sign?
Sailboat
90%? you’re kidding right? Do you live in Tokyo?
I think it is at least a part of hip-hop fashion culture and perhaps a gang sign in most urban parts of the U.S. Although I can see the utility if one were riding a bicycle without a chain guard, that does little to explain the mutlitude of pant rolled thugs cruising around in cars.
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
IME its more like 10% bicycles. No self respecting gang is riding bicycles.