House of Eratosthenes

Even though nobody reads this blog, the nobodies who do, are well-acquainted with my attitude about droopy trousers. In a way, I’m grateful that they’re here because they help to clarify what goes on when people think in groups. The question that would remain unsettled, if not for them, goes something like this: When you make a decision as part of a large group, are you simply less likely to reach a rational conclusion? Or could it be that you are predisposed to arrive at conclusions that are irrational?

The baggy pants fad, and fashion in general, help to answer this. If group-think simply had a disorienting effect on us, depriving us of the attraction that we have toward logical ideas when doing our thinking in solitude, the “bad fads” would have about the same lifespan as the good ones. Baggy pants is an objectively bad fashion; its irrationality is measurable, and not a matter of personal opinion. Boys who insist on wearing their baggy pantaloons every day, interrogated by outraged parents, defend the practice because “the girls like it.” That is probably the most durable test we can construct for bad ideas — someone’s offered an opportunity to defend them, and their defense is going to be to punt to someone else.

Plus, you can’t run in the damn things. If there are activities to be associated with fashion items, the activities associated with this one all seem to be illegal. Well, I just think when you break the law, you ought to be wearing something suitable for running.

The lifespan of a healthy dog or cat has been surpassed by the baggy pants fad: about twelve years, give or take a couple years. Quick — name another fashion item that has endured for six. Beehive hairdo? No. Goatee? Not yet. White go go boots? Mutton chop sideburns? The preppy look? Not even close.

If there is to be a Methusaleh fad, a fad lasting longer than any other in modern times, does the the droopy-drawer look even begin to offer qualities that would distinguish it as a reasonable candidate? Well let’s see…it accentuates the male crack. You know, I don’t swing that way, but it seems doubtful to me that even people who are attracted to men, want to see that. It’s impractical. Twenty years ago it was fashionable for girls with huge breasts to be wearing tight sweaters. Good times…well, you can do a lot of things in a tight sweater. You can’t run with baggy pants on. I think you can run better wearing a bag of cement than you can wearing some baggy pants.

As for the message sent with the fashion fad, this has got to be the most disastrous attribute of the “can smuggle a watermelon in my crotch” craze. It is worn by spoiled urban parasitic youth who want to look more masculine than they are. It got started, it would appear, as a calling card among gay men. So let’s say the potential for ambiguity seems to run a little high here.

It’s the longest-running fad in modern times. Those teeny bikini bottoms the ladies used to wear on their swimsuits, riding low on the hips…that’s an example of a “good fad” if ever there was one…they looked great. After two or three years some nameless faceless unaccountable invisible fashion emperor in New York, declared enough was enough. “Boy shorts” are now the “in” thing for feminine swimwear. No such moratorium has been declared on these hoodlum-pants that hoodlums wear doing their hoodlum things, right before leading the police on a hoodlum foot chase that they can’t maintain because their hoodlum pants keep falling off their hoodlum butts.

Maybe it’s all a secret plan to foil crime. I dunno. But the evidence is in: When you go along to get along in a large group, you aren’t simply dissuaded from making logical decisions, it seems you’re actually motivated to make illogical ones. There’s one — just one — twelve-year-long fad in modern history, and it has to do with failing to accomplish the sole objective of wearing clothes, presuming there can be only one: getting your damn ass crack concealed and keeping it that way.

[…] Nowadays, we expect gentlemen and ladies to dress differently. Women are supposed to be cute and neat, men are supposed to be droopy and sloppy. But hey — you think that will be easy to explain to people in three decades? I have my doubts. Share This Article With Others:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 11/08/2007 @ 11:29
[…] his dad’s clothes? 13. Californians and weather. Why can’t they drive in it? 14. Pants that sag. Who wants to see someone’s butt crack? How come people who expect to run away from cops, […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 05/09/2010 @ 06:52
[…] boy, it sure did hang around a long time. Heh. “Hang around,” I made a […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 09/13/2013 @ 08:28
[…] become boring. Enough of this. I had to wait fifteen years or more for young men to stop wearing droopy jeans that expose their ass cracks. Time for this fad to fade into the oblivion of history as well. Or at least, it would be, if they […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 08/03/2014 @ 09:11

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Methusaleh FadWednesday, August 15th, 2007

Methusaleh Fad
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007