Pull Up Your Goddamn Pants

First off, let’s get the racial thing out of the way. While the style of sagging one’s pants ostensibly developed within minority groups in the ghetto, it has since spread to all races and sub-classes of idiots between the ages of 12 and 29. White guys now do it in a half-assed attempt to seem badass, cool, or ghetto; this particular rant isn’t meant to condemn any particular race or group of people, but stupidity in general.

With that done: people who sag their pants are goddamned morons.

The look, it is said, arose in the mid-90’s as an attempt to replicate the look of city prisoners. Since police immediately took away the belts of those men they arrested (to prevent suicide attempts and assault), their pants sagged considerably as a result. Inner-city teenagers picked up on the fad and adopted it as their own silent, much dumber way of saying, “Fuck Tha Police.”

While raging against one’s machine is all well and good, it begs the question: aren’t there more intelligent ways to go about it? Or, at the very least, less functionally prohibitive ways? The funny thing about this fashion trend is – and trust me, you’ll love this – is that when you sag your jeans, you can’t god damn fucking walk. In order to successfully perambulate with your jeans sagging around your ankles, you have to adopt (and I quote Wikipedia) “a slight bow-legged stance.”

Just to clarify, walking with bowed legs is usually considered a disability, otherwise known as Genu Varum or Blount’s disease.

That’s right – in order to walk whilst sagging your pants, you have to emulate the sufferers of a rather unpleasant disease.  The word “stupidity” doesn’t really begin to cover it, though it’s certainly one of the first that springs to mind.

And that’s the other thing: it takes a considerable amount of effort to maintain this fashion style. Imagine if all the people who expelled so much physical effort at keeping their jeans juuuust above knee level  diverted their efforts toward something more positive. Not to suggest that ceasing to sag your pants will give you the power to win the presidential election, but every journey starts with a step – and in the case of the saggers, that step involves getting a goddamned belt.

Look at him. My God, just look at him. He looks fucking ridiculous. He’s even wearing a goddamned belt, but he isn’t even using it.  How could anyone look at this fashion style and think it worth emulating? Okay, yeah, maybe the first few people who did it were making a direct statement about friends or relatives of theirs who had been wrongfully arrested or whatever, but everyone outside of that (relatively small) group of people has no fucking excuse. To sag your pants like that actively defeats the entire fucking purpose of wearing pants in the first place, and cannot possibly, under any circumstances, not look ridiculous in every conceivable way. Pants have one job in life – cover your underwear. If you’re going to sag, then why not wear pants at all? Walking around in nothing but boxers and a T-shirt might be frowned on by the ruling class, but isn’t that the whole point? Fuck the status quo?  If you’re going to wear pants, then wear fucking pants. Don’t half-ass it and wear them, but sag them down so low that the entirety of your underwear is visible above your belt loops.

Sagging one’s pants also represents something of a healthy danger, of course. As every male with a rectum knows, they have the tendency to itch. Ergo, since every man scratches his ass, every guy with saggy pants will also scratch his pants at some point throughout the day. However, saggers have fewer amounts of clothing between their ass and the rest of the world when compared to regular human beings – ergo, when they scratch their asses, more microscopic shards of rectal residue are thrust into the air (to test this on a much more direct scale, scratch your ass whilst wearing nothing but boxers and then check to see if your fingers stink. Or better yet, don’t.). Granted, we’re not talking about enough ass-matter to give you hepatitis, but still – the idea of having your ass literally hanging out of your pants doesn’t seem the most hygienic fashion practice ever devised.

Beyond that, it isn’t even comfortable! I’ve had to walk around for a few hours in beltless pants a few sizes too large for me, and I spent most of that time petrified that my pants were going to fall off completely. Sagging isn’t the most reassuring or pleasant feeling in the world. Why go through all the trouble of loosening your pants, bowing your legs, and walking in a sort of waddle, just for the purposes of maintaining a pointless, aesthetically displeasing fashion statement?

And white guys, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? The vast majority of Caucasians who sag their pants have absolutely no idea where it originated, no idea what its message is, and only the faintest inkling of the fact that it simply represents yet another instance of their complete inability to form a personality and style of their own. Sagging is one of those many styles that self-conscious white males have singlehandedly stolen from minorities and nonsensically claimed as their own. Call me crazy, but I’m reasonably willing to believe that a guy living in Orange County whose parents make $80k a year really knows what it’s like to be arrested or oppressed by the police. Chances are, the most experience any of the white saggers have of prison life consists a high-definition TV, a Blu-Ray player, and a boxed set of the first season of Oz.

What more is there to say? Any person who has ever gazed upon a member of society with sagging jeans has quietly shaken their head in dismay and irritation – your fashion statement looks stupid, and (like tattoos, piercings and motorcycles), it also lost all of its meaning once financially-stable white guys stole the concept purely for its aesthetic “value.” The game is up; the fashion is stupid. So with that in mind, let us say it loudly, decisively, and never again:

Pull up your goddamn pants.

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Additionally, special thanks to Bob for suggesting this topic.