So cargo shorts, a staple of casual menswear since the 1990s, are going out of style like, well, they’re going out of style.
The anti-cargo shorts backlash, many years in the making, kicked into high gear after the Wall Street Journal reported last month that increasing numbers of women have started resorting to drastic tactics to stop the dudes in their lives from wearing these new fashion no-nos. One man told the WSJ that his wife had secretly disposed of more than a dozen pairs of his over the years; another only wears them around the house when his wife is away, in what has become an act of “disobedien[ce] in my marriage.”
Within a few days the media was filled with denunciations of the (really quite comfortable) shorts. “Dear Men, Please Stop Wearing Cargo Shorts,” Buzzfeed urged, while Business Insider declared that cargo shorts are “the single worst item a man can wear in the summer.”
Really? Worse than these?
Now some Men Going Their Own Way have adopted the shorts as a way to stick it to women.
“I think of cargo shorts as a form of protest now,” a MGTOW called Tyler_Gatsby declared in a recent post on the MGTOW subreddit.
I wear them with pride. And with all that dick moving room, it almost feels like it’s flipping them off sometimes.
While it was news to many in Mr. Gatsby’s audience that a lot of people really hate cargo shorts, other Reddit MGTOWs reported that they too were wearing the shorts as an act of defiance against giant-pocket-hating feminazi gynocrats, or something.
“From now on, rebrand them as ‘Tactical Shorts,'” one commenter suggested. “It will piss off the Special Snoflakes to no end….”
Another reported that he’d been wearing the hell out of cargo shorts as soon as he discovered that a lot of women hate them.
I wore all mine until they fell apart, and wore them even more often once the fashion police took aim at them. Now I can’t buy any new ones these things were literally purged from existence by manginas and women.
Others went even further. Several confessed their love for “the ones with the zipped trousers – trousers and shorts in one!” And one bold fellow suggested escalating the protest:
Let’s take it a step further: denim cargo shorts.
The horror.
As for why women hate cargo shorts, most Reddit MGTOWs seem to agree it’s because women don’t like anything that is useful. And because the lustful ladies like staring at men’s butts.
“It does come down to something fundamental between men and women,” wrote someone calling themselves feedmecarrots.
Men love cargo shorts because they are functional. Women hate them because they do not enhance a man’s form.
Pfthewall lamented the evil hypocrisy of these butt-loving women:
You mean women get pissed when it is difficult for them to ogle men, all the while they complain about men ogling them?
Linux_Guy91, meanwhile, let loose with an angry rant centered abound his need to store phone chargers on his person.
Any chick who disses cargo shorts is ignorant as f*ck. I’ve had stares in the past from girls who would bug out when their phone was low on battery but didn’t have a charger on them because they couldn’t carry it in their tight pockets or wrist purse thing. My phone gets low, I pull out my charger and i’m good.
And these pocket-laden shorts come in especially handy when riding roller coasters.
Not to mention they’re awesome for when you don’t want to keep your wallet in your back pocket or if they have zipper pockets perfect for storing stuff if you like roller coasters. Functional > fashionable.
Duly noted.
In all my years of wearing cargo shorts, I think I’ve made use of the big pockets like once.
I still haven’t given my cargo shorts up, but I think I’ll have to now that they’ve gotten themselves drenched in the stench of MGTOW.
NOTE: Just FYI, the dudes in the top photo don’t have anything to do with the MGTOW subreddit post; the pic has been floating around the internet forever and seemed apropos
@Chaucer Conspiracy Dumbass
Oh christ, Numerology is one of those traps that make people who mastered math in High School feel like geniuses while turning them into cranks.
This troll is awesome. It’s like someone fused Deepak Chopra, Robert Anton Wilson and Dan Brown together and then ran their text through a Markov chain.
My guess is that it’s a chatbot written as an attempt to pass the Turing test, and has been trained on conspiracy websites and old Discordian documents. I think it isn’t quite there yet, but is certainly fun.
@Axe – Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
3+19=22. Einstein once used a 22 to balance his checkbook.
We’re through the looking glass, people.
Great. I have a pair I use as my mountain biking/gardening shorts. Now I have to give them up because I’d rather bike naked than be associated with MRAs.
@ buttercup
Neither did I, until now.
I suspect “The Porton Down Scratch & Sniff Book” is one to be avoided.
@Buttercup
10 points to Skullpants!
I’m totally down with people wearing whatever makes them happy.
I’m sure these dudes support me right back and have no trouble with me loving yoga pants.
Right?
I think cargo shorts are great for when they’re doing paleontological digs out in the badlands.
Anyone else see Thomas Beckett’s posts and hear in their head “Who will rid me of this turbulent troll?” or just me?
Numerology is like nerd-sniping for cranks :-p
also, Thomas Becket (OBM) died on December 29 1170…which is an important number in….nope i got nothin.
@ alpine, rn
By definition all numbers are interesting. That’s because various numbers all have special properties (lowest prime, lowest sum of two primes, etc.) so it’s quite a while before you get to a number that has no special interesting features; but that makes the number pretty interesting in itself. So we have to go to the next one; but…..
And so on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_number_paradox
Not really, you get grazes on your knees and sand up your asscrack.
… I know it was a joke, but I’ve been there and done that, so. =P
Canvas pants. Heavy canvas pants for that sort of hardscrabble. Sure it’s hot, but you won’t be bleeding, won’t have to worry about burrs and poison ivy, and won’t have to worry about a billion mosquitoes all the time.
Delurking for a silly joke:
@Anarchonist
They would be bonbonobos.
I think I can safely assume all women dislike men to be covered in mucus because it’s gross, are they now going to drench themselves in gross goo as a form of “protest”?
I don’t think I’ve personally run into anyone who had a particular dislike of cargo shorts, but I do regularly hear women talk of their love of pockets. Pockets on dresses? Yes!
Re Numerology, has anyone else heard this one?
Barney= CUTE PURPLE DINOSAUR
Change the U’s to V, because Latin:
CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR
Take out the roman numerals:
CV V L DI V= 105+5+50+501+5=666
BARNEY IS THE ANTICHRIST!
joekster: Why yes I have…
…from my high school friend who started getting into numerology and the intersection of bad math and specious philosophy.
@Jaygee
https://mobile.twitter.com/hellolanemoore/status/532224797150023680
@Noadi: Yep, I totally did!
BINGO! And legs. Which cargo shorts also don’t show enough of, IMO.
MISAAAAANDRY!!!
@leftwingfox: I actually heard it from my minister back in Sparks (I think) who was using it as an illustration of just how ridiculous theology can get 🙂
You can have my cargoes when you pry them off my cold, dead ass!
I’m someone with tendonitis in my shoulders; I can carry stuff from my shoulders for the time it takes to get from my car to my front door. Much more than that and I’m in a world of hurt. Even just one of those wallets on a strap gets painful in under half an hour. That, coupled with carpal tunnel in both hands makes my cargo pants vital for my day to day existence.
I’d love a dressier, trimmer cargo design (which actually exist, but Duluth Trading refuses to make them in my size) but, I’ll just stick with men’s.
I think I got nailed by that technical difficulty issue yesterday, none of my comments got through. Here’s hoping!
Aaaand that calls up an image I’d rather not have in my head (ugh), so I’m going to exorcise it with a little lovely music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9q5Ognnk-o
(The band’s name is MAJOR misaaaandry.)
Oh noes, NOT THOSE!!!
(This from someone wearing what could almost be just that, only mine are body-skimming, don’t have pockets down the leg but rather large patch pockets in front, and are made of railroad-striped denim that looks vaguely nautical, with fancy crisscross patchwork and trapunto stitching on the back pockets, which have button flaps. Oh, and they have metal eyelets at various locations, too! They’re very cute and quite flattering, even if they do hit my kneecaps.)
OT, but is anyone following this? (TW: body shaming)
http://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/celebrity/playboy-playmate-could-face-arrest-after-woman-she-allegedly-shamed-in-locker-room-pic-comes-forward/ar-AAiwLY2?ocid=spartanntp