back to article Fort Worth joins crusade against sagging pants

Fort Worth has struck a blow for fashion decency by banning anyone wearing their trousers at half-mast from boarding its buses. The city's Transportation Authority, aka 'The T', has decided its passengers should be spared the sight of hipsters' arse cleavage or underwear as they stagger about with their kecks heading towards …

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  1. Lamont Cranston
    Thumb Up

    Quite right.

    If I wanted to see your pants, I'd at least have bought you a drink, first.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Athough.......

      If the young lady is rather fetching can I suggest the rule can be relaxed somewhat?

  2. Cazzo Enorme

    Shame

    I've always viewed hipster jeans wearing twunts as potential Darwin awards waiting to happen, particularly as they stagger along narrow pavements alongside major roads or along crowded platforms on the tube.

    On a more serious note, I read a study by a sociologist who had traced this fashion back to prisons in the Southern US. Vulnerable prisoners were made to wear ill fitting strides by those higher up the inmate food chain as a way of marking them out. Marking out for a rogering that is.

    1. The Jase

      Source

      Post the source of your information.

      I have heard it was to show solidarity with your homies in prison. They had their shoelaces and belts taken off then so they wouldn't hang themselves.

      1. Trevor Marron

        This is not Wikopedia.....

        Who cares about a source, it is a decent theory!

    2. Hud Dunlap
      FAIL

      The sociologist is nuts

      It makes it easier to hide weapons and stolen property. Same reason back in Capone days gangsters wore oversized suits.

  3. Gannon (J.) Dick
    Pint

    Not exactly

    "50 people were given their marching orders"

    I love a Parade, but "march", no. Can't be done.

    1. Marvin the Martian

      Marching orders?

      Probably more their Waddling warrant.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    WAAAAAA! I'M BEING OPPRESSED!

    "WAAAA! I'M BEING OPPRESSED! YOU'RE TREATING ME LIKE I'M A GANG-BANGING SCUM!"

    "Well, considering you are going out of your way to DRESS and ACT like a gang-banging scum, why should we treat you any differently?"

    Sorry, if you don't want to be treated like it, don't look like it.

    1. JoeTheAnnoying
      Thumb Up

      Personal Experience

      That's about the size of it.

      I was an 80's punker in a small town, and couldn't walk 2 blocks at night without the local police pulling over to "have a chat": "Where are you going? What are you doing? What has its gots in its pocketses? Where are you going?" etc. (Yeah, "Where are you going?" always popped up at least 3-4 times during each conversation, just to see whether I'd slip up). One night I took my girlfriend to a nice restaurant, and as soon as I went to the bathroom, the owner rushed out to offer to call my girlfriend a cab so she could get away from me.

      But occasionally I'd get dressed up for my girlfriend -- no leather, steel-toed boots, or metal where it didn't belong, and my hair down in a reasonable facsimile of "normal". And gee, not once, EVER, did I get questioned while dressed like a fine upstanding citizen. We went to the same restaurant, and the owner gushed over me and talked about how happy he was that my girlfriend had found such a nice, upstanding young man. (We got to know him over the years, and had a good laugh with him over that one).

      Like it or not, the world over, people judge you on the way you dress and act. I was a punk because I wanted to raise hackles. But I knew I was bringing all the reactions on myself. It's simple: Don't want to be harassed, don't look like a thug.

      1. CD001

        Alternatively

        Alternatively move to a city where you can look like what the feck you want and nobody bats an eyelid... I've not been hassled by the fuzz once (OK, once but that was because my car tax disc was out of date), or really anyone else, since I moved away from small town England.

        I suspect the law has other things to deal with in a city than worry about how long your hair is, what colour it is or how many piercings you have visible. I love the fact that I can dress the way I want and still not stand out from the crowd - can't imagine ever moving back to a town like where I grew up now.

  5. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Happy

    Good and bad....

    I think these people who wear their strides half way down their legs need a bloody good slap, but....

    On the other hand however, I find it bloody hilarious to watch these kids ( for it is they mostly! ) walking like waddling penguins, trying to negotiate a flight of stairs while trying to look trendy with their under garments on full display for all to see!

    1. C 2
      Go

      For a good laugh

      You should see one try to run that way .. positively makes girls in tight leather skirts look manlier.

      Alas I could find no examples on the InterGoogle.

      1. Bill B

        Penguins

        I'm always amused to see a youngster trying to look hip whilst dressed like Dick van Dyk from Mary Poppins

  6. Frumious Bandersnatch
    Coat

    Riders don't want to see ...

    insert witticism about low riders here

  7. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Excellent Start

    Now lets sort out those guys who walk around with their baseball caps slightly askew. Then there's the lady in accounts receivable at work who always wears green floral print frocks. Oh and Uncle Ted, who has his belt around his chest exposing mis-matched socks at Christmas dinner.

    1. jonathanb Silver badge
      Flame

      and pointy toes

      They also need to go after women who wear shoes with pointy toes. Can't stand them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        re pointy toes

        Couldn't agree more, although I'd expand it a bit to cover anyone who wears shoes that are significantly longer than their feet, male or female, and isn't a card carrying Clown Union member. Unnatural I say.

  8. John Riddoch
    Thumb Down

    Evolution of trousers....

    Pensioners wear trousers up to their armpits

    Middle-aged people were trousers round their waists

    Young 'uns wear trousers round their bum or lower

    In a few years, people will be wearing their trousers round their knees, a few years after that it'll be round their ankles...

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure there's a lot of things people in Forth Worth find disrespectful.

    Hipster has to be the most useless word used to describe a group of people, as no one has any consensus on who it exactly refers to. I have to say this is about as far off general consensus as I've ever seen, though. Hipster normally means someone who follows "alternative" or "indie" fashion trends and culture. It is an insult, those in that culture use it to make fun of people who treat the culture as only a fashion. It's somewhat like calling someone a "poser" in punk culture. A silly insult, really. A funny thing with the hipster insult is that most people outside the culture use it to just describe EVERYONE in the culture, or just people who look "hip". Pants being worn down past the waist would normally be associated of hip hop culture, hipsters are normally sterotyped as wearing skinny jeans.

    Honestly though, it's always amused me both how stupid the low pants look and how much certain old people are threatened by them. It's a really mainstream fashion now, hardly anti-establishment.

    Mr. Hagood, it's nice that you're able to read the minds of an entire group of people and know their reasons for wearing a particular fashion! You'll have to teach me sometime! I love judgement not based on character! I'm going to start heckling guys in suits as they are no doubt trying to look like the criminals who caused the banking crisis!

  10. Jon Double Nice
    Windows

    haha

    So if it's up to individual bus drivers, what if one starts abusing the system, and makes everybody pull their trousers up to their ribcage.

    1. MarkieMark1
      Holmes

      there's a brilliant invention

      called the sheriff :-)

  11. Mike Moyle
    Coat

    So does this mean...

    ..that plumbers will not be allowed to ride the bus?

    1. lglethal Silver badge
      Joke

      Considering...

      Considering how much that last plumbing job cost me, i dont think theres any risk that a plumber will be needing to catch a bus anytime soon!

  12. NomNomNom

    here is the required title

    at least they get a fair warning compared to over here. if you pull your pants down on a bus in the UK you dont get a warning, they stop the bus and call the police and then you get arrested even if u were just trying to get your phone which had fallen thru a hole in your pocket and some kids lie and say you were trying to touch them. whats up with that?

    1. Big-nosed Pengie

      Or so I hear

      see title

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Ladies, this is all your fault...

    If the ladies of the world would just stop sleeping with these clowns, they'd stop dressing like clowns. There are few motivators as potent as being mocked publicly by members of the opposite sex.

    Paris, we need you baby.

  14. Tom Maddox Silver badge
    Go

    Crack kills

    I don't really think of the low-slung trousers look as a hipster thing, more of a gangsta(-wannabe) thing. Either way, I support this ban. Unfortunately, it would be unenforceable in my current city of residence, not because I think that the gangsta community is any great threat but because the bus drivers couldn't be arsed (pun intended).

    1. LateNightLarry
      Pint

      Crack kills...

      You must be talking about San Francisco... Bus drivers there show up for work when or if they feel like it, and their contract with SF Muni allows them to get away with it. And they don't even have to be civil to the riders.

      Beer, because I'll need several if I ever have to ride Muni.

  15. Arctic fox
    Coat

    I have to admit that I am in two minds on this one. I cannot decide whether......

    .........the gangsta-wannabees who dress like that or a bus company who wants to enforce a dress code on its passengers are the bigger bunch of knobheads.

    Oh and BTW, does the bus company have plans to throw ladies with low cut blouses of the bus? Mind you if I were the driver I'd be inviting them *on to* the bus but that's another story.

    I'll get my coat, got to catch a bus.

  16. Winkypop Silver badge
    Happy

    These 'hipster' guys remind me of....

    ....toddlers walking around with a FULL-nappy/diaper.

    Well, it makes me smile anyway.

  17. Steve Brooks

    steps

    See this all come of having busses modified to be accessible by the disabled, if they still had honking great steps like they had when I were a lad these guys would ha' to pull up their trews just to get on. Yeah I'm getting old, but thats one of the benefits of getting old, telling young uns they dress stupid.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      re: Yeah I'm getting old

      And have you heard what passes for music these days? Back in my day we knew what made a good tune, and had songs you could sing along with. Last night I heard my mama singin' a song, oo-ee, chirpy chirpy cheep cheep ...

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apart from looking rediculous...

    ... the kids and sadly, 'men' wearing their pants down at half mast and walking with legs spread apart are just banking on a whole world of hurt in their later years, Hip and Knee issues are going to abound. They are forcing their bodies to walk in a very unnatural manner and straining the joints while they do it. Eventually there will be a generation of using Zimmer Frames to get about and having to wear incontinence diapers because it will take so long for them to get to the bathroom. Won't be so flattering.

    As to the comment about it being a prison thing, that is correct and it was used to identify those that were willing to be someone's "Bitch". It wasn't a marker and wasn't forced it was identifier of those that were looking for a 'man to look after them'.

    The people that walk the streets these days like that are rather pathetic and they should be arrested for indecent exposure.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Childcatcher

    Can we have a ban on those twunts

    who wear their caps on the wonk.

    Here's one

    http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42857000/jpg/_42857035_brunstrom203pa.jpg

    What is it with these eeejuts?

    Do they think this is a good look?

    http://runstop.de/segue02.jpg

  20. Bill Fresher

    Uncouth

    What!? They allow gentlemen who aren't wearing a tie onto the bus??

    Crazy Americans.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Baggy Trousers?

    Won't someone please stop the 'Madness'.

    Incidentally Suggs ..big fan....hate that advert though.

  22. MrDamage Silver badge
    Trollface

    I can never decide

    Between dacking them fully and giving them a shove in the back to trip them over, or grabbing the exposed undies and giving them an atomic wedgie.

    Its better when you have a mate with you, one can dack, the other can wedgie.

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