A Wall Street Journal article about a marriage torn apart at the seams by a man’s love for cargo shorts took the internet by storm on Monday. The story, which details how a Utah man’s wife covertly discarded 15 pairs of his beloved cargo shorts over the course of their 11-year marriage, riled the cargo community at large.
The piece also addresses the generational factors of cargo short syndrome, with maybe the best expert citation ever:
“Those [’90s] teenagers are now married, and they don’t get rid of their clothes. They don’t evolve,” said Joseph Hancock, a design and merchandising professor at Drexel University, who wrote his Ph.D. thesis about cargo pants.
Though the article is written in an objective reporting style and contains nary a directive, comments on the article and on the Wall Street Journal’s Facebook page are full of rebuttals and aggressive rhetoric in favor of cargo shorts. These bros are downright militant.
Who radicalized these cargo panters pic.twitter.com/9bJ7AzzaCS
— Unemployed Astronaut (@MilfParade) August 2, 2016
Some are posting more elegant, but equally impassioned, arguments.
Wall Street Journal
Others claim the article has inspired them to don cargo shorts daily.
WSJ/Facebook
And still others insist that the article’s author, Nicole Hong—who happens to be, ahem, a woman—has no idea what she’s talking about.
Wall Street Journal
Wow, nylon cargos? Great point, man.
Hong shared another outraged reader’s response to the article on Twitter.
Our readers feel very passionately about cargo shorts. pic.twitter.com/r71WDLjK36
— Nicole Hong (@nicole_hong) August 2, 2016
Woah, dude. Chill.
Hong is by no means the first to shed light on public distaste for a pocketed pant. About a year ago BuzzFeed published an open letter to men everywhere that implored them to abandon their frumpy cargo shorts once and for all, in favor of a sleeker fit.
And, let’s not forget, the decline of Aéropostale precedes Hong’s “exposé.” The cargo short retail giant filed for bankruptcy in May following several quarters of declining sales. RIP.
Still, some just don’t want to let cargo shorts die.
On Twitter, several brave men have taken a stand against the issue of “cargo short shaming”.
https://twitter.com/WickedSmaaaht/status/760578923319132164
Enough with the cargo shorts shaming
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 2, 2016
Others have pointed out that celebrity allies like Leonardo DiCaprio wear the oft-attacked garment.
Even @LeoDiCaprio wears Cargo Shorts! #StopCargoShaming https://t.co/NkDyTpi6ZN
— Kyle W. (@KKyW) August 2, 2016
And others have asked, quite logically, what exactly men are meant to wear in place of cargo shorts?
If not cargo shorts then what? Do we go back to scrapped animal skins? Should we all be wearing bear pelts ala The Revenant?!
— ManInLowCastle (@maninlowcastle) August 2, 2016
Okay, perhaps cargos do have their place.
Like when you hit the town with the squad.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIpZ4qMhDUZ/
Or in a Jill Stein joke.
https://twitter.com/TravisACarr/status/760839362670190592
Or in an #AllLivesMatter joke.
"all lives matter and misandry is real" – men who wear cargo shorts and flip-flops
— Mandy Slamberg (@MandySlamberg) July 20, 2016
Maybe cargos just really work well as a joke?
Cargo shorts "were a big trend in the '90s, which is not in this century, by the way." —@NPRinskeep
— Doug Tribou (@DougTribou) August 3, 2016
Just heard a news report that for the first time in a decade the sale of cargo shorts is down. We did it! Never give up on your dreams!
— Jon Acuff (@JonAcuff) August 3, 2016
Even chief-douche-in-charge, lord of the douches, overseer of all that is douchely, Spencer Pratt, denounces cargo shorts.
Real talk I don't even own cargo shorts 😂
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) August 2, 2016
Yeesh. When Pratt’s not on your team, it might be time to admit defeat and hang the cargos out to dry.