The boys with their trousers sliding off their hips (and exposing in some cases not just underwear!) are sort of saying "Fuck you" to society, a bit, but they're really saying to their peers, "Look! I'm saying 'Fuck you' to society! How cool am I?" We who were boys in the 1960s thought we were being similarly rebellious (and cool) by wearing our trousers just perched on our hipbones, instead of belted near the navel like our fathers. Parents and teachers of that day were scandalized! Or at least, we thought they were.
But it became cool and everyone emmulated it. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
later someone turned me on the french phrase 'epater les bourgeois', (turn the straights into paste, or noodles?!?), and i got that this was probably generational...
the fetishising of appearance at that age seems transcultural, as far as i can see.
i distinctly remember walking down ken high st at 14, making a mental checklist of all i was wearing, the shoes are cool, the carnaby st trousers cool, shirt not so much etc etc...
pathetic! total product of my environment...
just like the kids today...adolescence is temporary insanity, even in animals, it sure had its fun moments though! The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. Chinese Proverb.
