GangBangin Wannabe

[Andara Bledin]

On the subject of patterns shaved into hair, I took a picture of one on the bus this morning. Now if I knew how to get pics off my phone, I'd post it.

Nekojin & I sold slap bracelets and friendship bracelets to people at conventions as recently as just last year.

^-.-^

[Jack7957]

I submit to you the following exhibits as evidence:

Big hair.
Banana clips.
Leg warmers.
Sweatshirts with the sleeves and collars cut out.
Members only jackets.
Garish colors.
That red Michael Jackson jacket.
Parachute pants.
Izod.
Swatches.
Jelly bracelets. (Making a comeback lately, too.)
Wearing collars up.
Jogging suits.
Messages/designs shaved into heads.
Madonna and Cyndi Lauper as fashion plates. And all the fashions they spawned.

As another member of the class of '88, you did not mention....
Benetton shirt
Miami Vice outfits
the shorts over sweatpants (like in The Goonies movie)

[blas]

Sorry, nowadays it's the SKIRT over the leggings look

Ew ew ew ew

[Gurndigarn]

You TOTALLY forgot HYPERCOLOR tshirts!

And those slap bracelets!

What about the bead friendship bracelet?

As one of the older fogies on the board...

the pants around the knees is the dumbest fashion in a very long time. It beats anything the 80s put out hands down. And the 70s. The hippie and psychadelic looks came close, but still lose. The flapper look might have tied it, for the same reasons: ugly and constrictive at the same time.

The only ones I can really think of being worse would be the extremes of the hoop skirts (though it can be a pretty effect, those are sheer murder on everyone near you... plus difficult to sit in), or tights with enormous codpieces for men (the ultimate in penis compensation), the worst of the poofy hairdoos (when you have live birds in your hair, it's Just Too Much). Probably there weren't the only ones, but they're all I'm familiar with.

[Jester]

As another member of the class of '88, you did not mention....
Benetton shirt
Miami Vice outfits
the shorts over sweatpants (like in The Goonies movie)

Picky picky. I got plenty, and I did it all off the top of my head in one shot. I am sure I missed plenty, but for a one shot post, I did damn good, thank you very much.

Sorry, nowadays it's the SKIRT over the leggings look

Not nowadays. That also was a fashion trend of the eighties, one that spawned from the Madonna phenomenon, if I'm not mistaken.

the pants around the knees is the dumbest fashion in a very long time. It beats anything the 80s put out hands down. And the 70s.

While it IS stupid, I have to say the seventies gave us some of the worst fashion statements and trends EVER.

Such as (again off the top of my head):

big fro's (and not just for my African brothers, either)
bad mustaches/facial hair styles
big collars
big ties
big lapels
bell bottoms
bell bottoms
bell bottoms
(That's not a typo. Bell bottoms were bad enough to be mentioned three times.)
Platform shoes.
Platform shoes with LIVE FISH in them!
Disco shirts.
Corduroy pants. (I wore them as a kid. They were HORRIBLE!)

Not sure that even the pants around the knees look beats half of those, let alone all of them.

Thank the gods I was only a kid in the seventies, and didn't voluntarily buy any of those things for myself. And thank the gods that my parents only made me suffer though a couple of them overall.

[ArenaBoy]

While it IS stupid, I have to say the seventies gave us some of the worst fashion statements and trends EVER.

For this reason if I see a late 1970s NBA match on TV I will just watch it for the pure laugh factor of the hairstyles alone.

[Gurndigarn]

While it IS stupid, I have to say the seventies gave us some of the worst fashion statements and trends EVER.

Such as (again off the top of my head):bell bottoms
bell bottoms
bell bottoms
(That's not a typo. Bell bottoms were bad enough to be mentioned three times.)

Turning your lower pant legs into mini-skirts was dumb, but I'll still consider today's pant-waist around your legs-- forcing yourself to do the pengiun waddle-- to be far worse.

Ooooohhhhh: new name for the fad! Penguin pants!

[Starlord]

Since the offending N-word is so hateful, and yes, I hate it also. the KKK was my grandfather's bag, not mine. Where I live, we call these white wannabe gangstas whiggers. I think it is obvious the etymology of this term.

It is funny, but the baggies began with the surfers, so they could get out of their pants fast (of course, they had swim trunks on, too.) How the transition from surfers to gangstas came about, I don't know.

Recently, we spotted a couple of kids (late teens, early 20s). The girl was obviously Goth, except for her hair that looked like someone had eaten five pounds of Sherwin Williams color chips then puked on her head. The guy that was with her was wearing a smallish vest and Arabian style pants. His head was shaved except for the 10 inch spiked mohawk in international orange. I turned to my wife, saying, "I didn't know the circus was in town." If looks could kill, I would have been in the local morgue.

How about elephant leg bell bottoms? I made a pair once by splitting the outside seams from hem to knee, then sewing in a panel of purple paisley. The jeans fit almost skin tight down to the knee, then the opening at the hem was about 18 inches in diameter.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I turned to my wife, saying, "I didn't know the circus was in town." If looks could kill, I would have been in the local morgue.

Oh, screw 'em. They got off on it. I PROMISE you, it gave them a little thrill.

[Andara Bledin]

Not nowadays. That also was a fashion trend of the eighties, one that spawned from the Madonna phenomenon, if I'm not mistaken.

Actually, that whole mis-matched layered thing isn't even American, much less from the 80's. It's something that we picked up from the punk movement. It seems punk has hit Japan, hard. At Anime Expo, we saw a lot of Asian punks to go along with the overabundance of loli and g-lol stuff.

Such as (again off the top of my head):

big fro's (and not just for my African brothers, either)
bad mustaches/facial hair styles
big collars
big ties
big lapels
bell bottoms
bell bottoms
bell bottoms
(That's not a typo. Bell bottoms were bad enough to be mentioned three times.)
Platform shoes.
Platform shoes with LIVE FISH in them!
Disco shirts.
Corduroy pants. (I wore them as a kid. They were HORRIBLE!)

I currently own two pairs of cords and have a pair of flared pants. I like flared pants. And I've recently seen platforms with fish in them, although they were plastic fish, but they were in liquid and moved around.

It is funny, but the baggies began with the surfers, so they could get out of their pants fast (of course, they had swim trunks on, too.) How the transition from surfers to gangstas came about, I don't know.

Skate punks, too, although they did it more for the protection against mis-flipped boards than being able to shuck 'em off quickly. Of course, there's a lot of cross over between the two groups.

Recently, we spotted a couple of kids (late teens, early 20s). The girl was obviously Goth, except for her hair that looked like someone had eaten five pounds of Sherwin Williams color chips then puked on her head. The guy that was with her was wearing a smallish vest and Arabian style pants. His head was shaved except for the 10 inch spiked mohawk in international orange. I turned to my wife, saying, "I didn't know the circus was in town." If looks could kill, I would have been in the local morgue.

The whole "goth" look is being flooded with g-lol (goth lolita) fashion and punk accoutrements and hairstyles. There were some incredibly diverse hairstyles at the convention last weekend. One guy had a "Flock of Seagulls" sort of look, with one side black and the other side pale green.

^-.-^

[Aldous]

Hey I like Bell Bottoms. If they still made them I'd wear them. I'm a 1960's lovechild born 40 years too late. I'm in with the wrong generation.

[Noelegy]

For this reason if I see a late 1970s NBA match on TV I will just watch it for the pure laugh factor of the hairstyles alone.

On the other hand, the shorts the basketball players wore back then seemed to make more sense, in terms of freedom of movement, than the long, baggy, shiny things they wear now that look like ladies' half-slips.

As another member of the class of '88, you did not mention....

Hey, me too!

"We are super, we are great, 'cause we're the class of '88!"

Funny story. I went to a small Texas school, where half of our graduating class of about 65 people went to school with each other from kindergarten through graduation (I was one of those long-timers). I was on the yearbook staff my junior and senior years. We had a very small budget and could only afford four two-page spreads of color pages.

One of those was used for Spirit Week, where we wore our school colors (maroon and gold), which was an obvious choice. But another use of the coveted color pages was on a rather silly article about students considered to be fashionable in their attire.

It was pretty much a "Who's Who" of popular people, wearing...absolutely average clothes. You must remember that trends hit our little school about 5 years after the rest of the world.

What I don't like is the super skinny high waisted jeans coming back.

What I don't like is jeans that hit at the natural waistline being described as "high-wasted" (not picking on you, AFP). Low-rise jeans are only flattering to a small segment of the population. I am not part of that segment. I'd like to be able to find a normal pair of jeans that don't feel like they need to be pulled up all the time.

[Jester]

...our school colors (maroon and gold)...

Being an Arizona State Sun Devil, I can DEFINITELY get behind those colors!

[fma_fanatic]

The "N" word almost broke up me and my fiance.

When we were first dating he was prone to not using his Brain to Mouth FilterTM.

One particular date he was describing his day and mentioned how one particular customer, one of the older ladies that ask for the latest dated milk kept insisting that he was lying to her. I guess she must have been a doozie. Anyway, that word comes up and I set my fork down (we were in some restaurant, I forget which; it was about 5 years ago), and looked him dead in the eye.

"If you want to continue dating me, you will refrain from using that word."

I apparently scared him because he had intended to ask me to go steady with him later that night(yes, he's an old stickler for that sort of thing), and I was the best thing to have come along in years.

He has never used it since, though I have caught him starting to say it, then bite his tounge.

See, I was raised where it didn't matter what your race was, everyone was respected. Name calling, especially that name, was not tolerated in the least. If your parents found out you said it, there was hell to pay.

[Noelegy]

The "N" word almost broke up me and my fiance. . . .
See, I was raised where it didn't matter what your race was, everyone was respected. Name calling, especially that name, was not tolerated in the least. If your parents found out you said it, there was hell to pay.

I was raised where some people were very ignorant and small-minded. I can remember a classmate moving to my school from California when we were in the second grade. He wore shorts to school one day--which at that time was not allowed--and some kids were making fun of him on the playground. He got mad, started crying, and said we were all a bunch of [N-bombs].

I mention that because he moved from a state that's supposed to be more progressive and liberal, to a *cough* red state, and still, when he was under duress, that's the word he reached for. He learned that somewhere.

However, because my parents were open-minded and tolerant folk (although they'd been raised by a generation not so tolerant), I grew up pretty much taking people at face value, although I grew up literally not knowing any black people (and very few brown ones) until I was an adult. I grew up knowing kids whose parents wouldn't make a big deal if they used the N-word, and I can remember when [British slang for "cigarette", starts with F] was the worst insult you could level at someone on the playground, even if you didn't know what it meant.

I don't think where you were raised has as much influence as who raised you. But that's just my .