WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.200 Welcome to today's deep dive. If you are joining 00:00:02.200 --> 00:00:05.559 us right now, you are in for a highly specific, 00:00:05.839 --> 00:00:08.619 slightly nostalgic, and honestly incredibly fascinating 00:00:08.619 --> 00:00:11.500 ride. Oh, absolutely. We are taking a single 00:00:11.500 --> 00:00:15.419 Wikipedia article, a purely factual encyclopedic 00:00:15.419 --> 00:00:18.030 entry. and using it to trace the lifespan of 00:00:18.030 --> 00:00:20.769 an everyday object that is almost certainly hung 00:00:20.769 --> 00:00:23.089 in your closet at some point. Or at least dominated 00:00:23.089 --> 00:00:25.429 your television screen. Right. We are looking 00:00:25.429 --> 00:00:28.410 at the cultural phenomena of mom jeans, and of 00:00:28.410 --> 00:00:31.370 course their counterpart, dad jeans. We all know 00:00:31.370 --> 00:00:33.409 what these are intuitively, but our mission today 00:00:33.409 --> 00:00:36.229 is to look at the historical record and understand 00:00:36.229 --> 00:00:39.590 exactly how an unflattering punchline transformed 00:00:39.590 --> 00:00:42.869 into a global, multi -generational fashion staple. 00:00:43.270 --> 00:00:45.710 Okay, let's unpack this. When we look at the 00:00:45.710 --> 00:00:47.850 actual timeline we are working from, where does 00:00:47.850 --> 00:00:49.909 this distinct silhouette originally plant its 00:00:49.909 --> 00:00:52.549 flag in fashion history? Well, if we are tracing 00:00:52.549 --> 00:00:54.929 the genuine non -ironic genesis of this physical 00:00:54.929 --> 00:00:57.189 garment, we are looking at the late 1980s and 00:00:57.189 --> 00:01:00.070 the early 1990s. Okay. That is the era when high 00:01:00.070 --> 00:01:02.289 -waisted women's jeans were simply the default. 00:01:02.390 --> 00:01:04.689 They were just the fashionable mainstream standard. 00:01:05.150 --> 00:01:06.829 Right. They weren't a joke yet. Exactly. But 00:01:06.829 --> 00:01:09.829 what is incredibly amusing about reading an encyclopedic 00:01:09.829 --> 00:01:13.150 entry on this topic is how clinically it breaks 00:01:13.150 --> 00:01:15.409 down a piece of clothing we see every day. Oh, 00:01:15.430 --> 00:01:17.849 I know. It treats the garment like an architectural 00:01:17.849 --> 00:01:20.769 blueprint. It just completely strips away the 00:01:20.769 --> 00:01:23.569 cultural baggage and describes the physical engineering 00:01:23.569 --> 00:01:26.670 of the pants. It really does read like a scientific 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:29.370 dissection of an alien artifact. Yeah. We all 00:01:29.370 --> 00:01:32.329 know a mom gene when we see one, but having it 00:01:32.329 --> 00:01:34.879 described objectively as a silhouette. that makes 00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:37.239 the buttocks appear and i have to use the exact 00:01:37.239 --> 00:01:41.030 phrasing here disproportionately longer larger 00:01:41.030 --> 00:01:44.310 and flatter is just a hilarious way to frame 00:01:44.310 --> 00:01:47.010 it. It really is. Because it's entirely counterintuitive 00:01:47.010 --> 00:01:49.609 to what traditional fashion usually aims to do, 00:01:49.709 --> 00:01:52.250 which is to tailor or flatter the human body. 00:01:52.370 --> 00:01:54.569 And that phrasing captures the exact departure 00:01:54.569 --> 00:01:57.090 from traditional tailoring. You have a defining 00:01:57.090 --> 00:01:59.409 high waist that rises specifically above the 00:01:59.409 --> 00:02:01.549 navel. Right. But it is the combination of elements 00:02:01.549 --> 00:02:04.230 below that waistline that creates that recognizable 00:02:04.230 --> 00:02:06.930 and eventually heavily mocked visual effect. 00:02:07.170 --> 00:02:09.580 The mom jean look. Right. You are dealing with 00:02:09.580 --> 00:02:13.259 deliberately designed excess space in the zipper, 00:02:13.439 --> 00:02:16.520 the crotch and the leg areas. So the midsection 00:02:16.520 --> 00:02:20.060 is incredibly loose and unfitted. But then it 00:02:20.060 --> 00:02:22.979 completely changes strategy at the bottom. Because 00:02:22.979 --> 00:02:25.139 it pairs that ballooning middle section with 00:02:25.139 --> 00:02:28.639 pleats and then it tapers down to a tight ankle 00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:31.620 length leg. Which is an incredibly specific structural 00:02:31.620 --> 00:02:34.900 choice. You have volume in the center, clamped 00:02:34.900 --> 00:02:37.120 down by a high waist above the navel and then 00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:39.419 tapered sharply at the ankle. Yeah. And when 00:02:39.419 --> 00:02:41.699 you factor in the other defining traits from 00:02:41.699 --> 00:02:44.379 the text, the almost ubiquitous light wash denim 00:02:44.379 --> 00:02:47.180 and the frequent use of elastic waistbands, you 00:02:47.180 --> 00:02:49.819 have a garment that is entirely prioritizing 00:02:49.819 --> 00:02:52.000 utility. It's about comfort and ease. ease of 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:54.599 movement over any sort of sleek aesthetic. It 00:02:54.599 --> 00:02:57.060 is a very distinct uniform. Totally. And what's 00:02:57.060 --> 00:02:59.580 crazy is that combination, the light wash, the 00:02:59.580 --> 00:03:02.139 pleats, the excess zipper space, the taper, that 00:03:02.139 --> 00:03:05.699 was just the normal default uniform for a solid 00:03:05.699 --> 00:03:08.099 decade before it became a punchline. But obviously, 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:11.620 culture doesn't stay frozen. The timeline shows 00:03:11.620 --> 00:03:14.780 a really sharp demographic shift. By the time 00:03:14.780 --> 00:03:17.659 the late 1990s and the 2000s roll around, these 00:03:17.659 --> 00:03:19.800 jeans aren't mainstream fashion anymore. No, 00:03:19.879 --> 00:03:21.819 not at all. The demographic wearing them had 00:03:21.819 --> 00:03:24.300 severely narrowed down to adult American women. 00:03:24.539 --> 00:03:28.699 And crucially, younger women of that era looked 00:03:28.699 --> 00:03:31.139 at that exact same silhouette and labeled it 00:03:31.139 --> 00:03:34.639 simply as old. That generational divide is the 00:03:34.639 --> 00:03:37.539 crucial pivot point in the timeline. The physical 00:03:37.539 --> 00:03:39.759 item did not change. Right. The pants were the 00:03:39.759 --> 00:03:42.439 same pants. Exactly. The elastic waistbands and 00:03:42.439 --> 00:03:44.419 the tapered ankles were identical to what was 00:03:44.419 --> 00:03:47.159 sold in 1990. What changed was the cultural context. 00:03:47.500 --> 00:03:50.240 A younger generation emerged, established their 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:52.419 own completely different fashion norms, which 00:03:52.419 --> 00:03:55.280 in the late 90s and early 2000s heavily favored 00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:58.080 low rise fits, and immediately relegated the 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:00.719 high waisted pleated denim to the category of 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:02.680 aging out of relevance. Which perfectly sets 00:04:02.680 --> 00:04:05.020 the stage for the branding of the insult. Because 00:04:05.020 --> 00:04:07.120 during that time, while adult women were certainly 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:10.139 wearing them, the actual term mom jeans wasn't 00:04:10.139 --> 00:04:12.060 the thing yet. It didn't exist in the cultural 00:04:12.060 --> 00:04:15.629 lexicon. It had to be invented. And the historical 00:04:15.629 --> 00:04:18.970 record pinpoints the exact origin of that term, 00:04:19.050 --> 00:04:21.930 not to a fashion magazine, but to a sketch comedy 00:04:21.930 --> 00:04:24.290 show. Yes. The term was thrust into the mainstream 00:04:24.290 --> 00:04:27.870 by a very specific pop culture moment. A May 00:04:27.870 --> 00:04:31.550 2003 Saturday Night Live skit. Written by Tina 00:04:31.550 --> 00:04:34.149 Fey. Exactly. And the way she framed it was just 00:04:34.149 --> 00:04:37.490 brilliant and brutal. She wrote this skit as 00:04:37.490 --> 00:04:40.069 a fake commercial for a completely fabricated 00:04:40.069 --> 00:04:43.129 brand of jeans, hilariously named Mom Jeans. 00:04:44.220 --> 00:04:46.920 And the tagline from that 2003 fake commercial 00:04:46.920 --> 00:04:49.480 is just an absolute time capsule. It flawlessly 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:51.839 captures the cultural hostility toward this style 00:04:51.839 --> 00:04:54.339 of dress at the time. The tagline was, for this 00:04:54.339 --> 00:04:56.519 Mother's Day, don't give mom that bottle of perfume. 00:04:56.779 --> 00:04:58.500 Give her something that says, I'm not a woman 00:04:58.500 --> 00:05:00.939 anymore. I'm a mom. What's fascinating here is 00:05:00.939 --> 00:05:03.459 how a single piece of late night comedy managed 00:05:03.459 --> 00:05:05.860 to completely weaponize the physical characteristics 00:05:05.860 --> 00:05:08.220 of a garment. The joke relies entirely on the 00:05:08.220 --> 00:05:10.740 premise that comfort and practicality are inherently 00:05:10.740 --> 00:05:14.620 opposed to femininity or fashion. That SNL skit 00:05:14.620 --> 00:05:17.139 took the elastic waists and the excess crop space 00:05:17.139 --> 00:05:19.420 we talked about earlier and turned them into 00:05:19.420 --> 00:05:22.079 a definitive symbol of surrender. Surrender is 00:05:22.079 --> 00:05:24.290 a great word for it. It cemented the idea in 00:05:24.290 --> 00:05:25.889 the public consciousness that putting on these 00:05:25.889 --> 00:05:27.769 specific pants meant you had crossed a psychological 00:05:27.769 --> 00:05:29.850 threshold where you were officially giving up 00:05:29.850 --> 00:05:32.069 on your youth. I'm not a woman anymore. I'm a 00:05:32.069 --> 00:05:36.350 mom. It is such a sharp, definitive demarcation 00:05:36.350 --> 00:05:39.290 line. And for a long time, that was it. That 00:05:39.290 --> 00:05:41.649 was the consensus. Yeah. The mom gene was the 00:05:41.649 --> 00:05:44.389 ultimate fashion punchline of the 2000s. If you 00:05:44.389 --> 00:05:46.949 wore them, you were entirely oblivious to style. 00:05:47.069 --> 00:05:51.310 Right. But if we fast forward. The timeline documents 00:05:51.310 --> 00:05:54.069 a massive, almost unbelievable resurgence of 00:05:54.069 --> 00:05:56.990 this exact same garment. I want you, the listener, 00:05:57.129 --> 00:05:59.970 to just mentally scan your own closet or picture 00:05:59.970 --> 00:06:02.209 the street style in any major city right now. 00:06:02.370 --> 00:06:05.790 Because in the 2010s and heavily into the 2020s, 00:06:05.810 --> 00:06:08.410 high -rise, ankle -length mom jeans didn't just 00:06:08.410 --> 00:06:11.300 come back. They completely took over. And the 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:14.139 irony of who is driving that resurgence is the 00:06:14.139 --> 00:06:16.819 most compelling part of this timeline. It is 00:06:16.819 --> 00:06:19.519 not adult American women returning to a comfortable 00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:23.120 staple. Not at all. The trend was entirely resurrected 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:25.860 by younger demographics. We are talking about 00:06:25.860 --> 00:06:28.920 tween and teenage girls moving straight up through 00:06:28.920 --> 00:06:31.740 college aged women and young adults. Yeah. The 00:06:31.740 --> 00:06:34.560 precise demographic that previously mocked the 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:37.579 style and dismissed it as old in the early 2000s 00:06:37.579 --> 00:06:39.980 is the exact demographic that made it the hot. 00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:44.500 It's the ultimate fashion paradox. The uniform 00:06:44.500 --> 00:06:47.439 of the uncool adult became the absolute standard 00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:50.160 for youth culture. But why do you think that 00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:52.560 is? Are they wearing them exactly the same way 00:06:52.560 --> 00:06:54.379 a suburban mom would have worn them in 1998? 00:06:54.779 --> 00:06:57.319 Or is the modern styling doing something different 00:06:57.319 --> 00:06:59.660 to recontextualize those unflattering proportions? 00:07:00.329 --> 00:07:02.730 Oh, the styling is entirely what separates the 00:07:02.730 --> 00:07:05.470 1990s mom from the 2020s college student. They 00:07:05.470 --> 00:07:07.649 aren't just throwing on the pants. They are aggressively 00:07:07.649 --> 00:07:10.329 curating the silhouette. I think so. The modern 00:07:10.329 --> 00:07:12.509 aesthetic heavily involves tucking in the top 00:07:12.509 --> 00:07:15.310 layer. Whether it's t -shirts, sweatshirts, chunky 00:07:15.310 --> 00:07:18.250 sweaters, blouses, or even skin -tight bodysuits, 00:07:18.430 --> 00:07:21.709 the top is almost always tucked. And crucially, 00:07:21.810 --> 00:07:24.290 it is frequently anchored with a belt. So it's 00:07:24.290 --> 00:07:26.529 deliberate. They are taking the exact feature 00:07:26.529 --> 00:07:28.389 that Tina Fey was making fun of, that massive 00:07:28.389 --> 00:07:31.110 high waist rising above the navel, and they're 00:07:31.110 --> 00:07:33.810 drawing a giant arrow to it with a belt. Precisely. 00:07:34.029 --> 00:07:36.370 If we connect this to the bigger picture, it 00:07:36.370 --> 00:07:39.490 illustrates how a new generation strips the pejorative 00:07:39.490 --> 00:07:42.930 meaning away from a historical garment and reclaims 00:07:42.930 --> 00:07:44.769 it on their own terms. Yeah, that makes sense. 00:07:44.930 --> 00:07:47.430 When you pair a fitted bodysuit with the ballooning 00:07:47.430 --> 00:07:50.189 pleated excess space of a light wash mom jean, 00:07:50.290 --> 00:07:52.649 you are playing with proportions intentionally. 00:07:53.529 --> 00:07:55.629 You're taking a garment historically associated 00:07:55.629 --> 00:07:58.050 with giving up and wearing it with hyper -awareness. 00:07:58.269 --> 00:08:00.930 Wow. It might have started as an ironic nod to 00:08:00.930 --> 00:08:03.649 90s nostalgia, but the styling mechanics proved 00:08:03.649 --> 00:08:06.550 so versatile that the irony faded. It simply 00:08:06.550 --> 00:08:09.129 became genuine mainstream fashion again. Here's 00:08:09.129 --> 00:08:11.529 where it gets really interesting. Because you 00:08:11.529 --> 00:08:13.850 can't talk about mom jeans without looking at 00:08:13.850 --> 00:08:15.569 the other side of the parental closet. Yeah. 00:08:15.910 --> 00:08:18.410 Our deep dive wouldn't be complete without looking 00:08:18.410 --> 00:08:20.930 at the corresponding term that popular media 00:08:20.930 --> 00:08:25.129 inevitably coined. Dad jeans. It is a natural 00:08:25.129 --> 00:08:27.410 linguistic mirror. Dad jeans are defined with 00:08:27.410 --> 00:08:30.769 very similar physical parameters. High waisted 00:08:30.769 --> 00:08:33.210 or sometimes mid waisted denim jeans that are 00:08:33.210 --> 00:08:36.090 predominantly worn by middle aged American men. 00:08:36.210 --> 00:08:39.690 Right. But historically, the timeline for men's 00:08:39.690 --> 00:08:42.529 fashion makes this specific garment stand out 00:08:42.529 --> 00:08:44.889 in a completely different way than the women's 00:08:44.889 --> 00:08:47.340 version. Because there is a massive historical 00:08:47.340 --> 00:08:50.080 gap mentioned in the text regarding men's trousers. 00:08:50.279 --> 00:08:52.080 Right. The mom jean was at least fashionable 00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:55.259 in the late 80s and early 90s. But for men, high 00:08:55.259 --> 00:08:57.100 -waisted pants have been out of the stylistic 00:08:57.100 --> 00:09:00.340 mainstream for a staggeringly long time. Decades. 00:09:00.340 --> 00:09:02.379 The historical record notes that high -waisted 00:09:02.379 --> 00:09:05.179 trousers actually lost popularity among men way 00:09:05.179 --> 00:09:08.639 back in the mid to late 1960s. So by the time 00:09:08.639 --> 00:09:10.440 we are talking about middle -aged men wearing 00:09:10.440 --> 00:09:13.200 high -waisted jeans in the 2000s, that specific 00:09:13.200 --> 00:09:15.950 rise had been entirely divorced. from mainstream 00:09:15.950 --> 00:09:18.830 men's fashion for nearly 40 years. That's a huge 00:09:18.830 --> 00:09:22.309 gap. It is. That makes the visual of a high -waisted 00:09:22.309 --> 00:09:25.090 dad jean much more jarring against the standard 00:09:25.090 --> 00:09:27.889 historical timeline of menswear. Which perfectly 00:09:27.889 --> 00:09:30.590 explains why a single outfit worn by a single 00:09:30.590 --> 00:09:33.730 man in 2009 became a defining cultural event 00:09:33.730 --> 00:09:37.000 for this term. If mom jeans had the SNL skit 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:40.340 in 2003 to solidify their punchline status, dad 00:09:40.340 --> 00:09:43.039 jeans had the 2009 Major League Baseball All 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:45.279 -Star Game. Oh, yes. And the man wearing them 00:09:45.279 --> 00:09:48.039 was the President of the United States. According 00:09:48.039 --> 00:09:50.940 to the record, the term dad jeans exploded into 00:09:50.940 --> 00:09:53.120 the popular consciousness when President Barack 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:55.279 Obama walked out to throw the ceremonial first 00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:57.500 pitch wearing a pair of baggy, high -waisted 00:09:57.500 --> 00:09:59.779 denim. The visual contrast was immediate. You 00:09:59.779 --> 00:10:01.679 have a sitting president on a massive global 00:10:01.679 --> 00:10:04.220 stage engaging in an athletic tradition, and 00:10:04.220 --> 00:10:07.240 he is wearing bleached, distinctly high -waisted, 00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:09.539 unfitted jeans. Yeah, quite the departure from 00:10:09.539 --> 00:10:11.919 the Oval Office look. Exactly. It completely 00:10:11.919 --> 00:10:15.139 bypassed normal political commentary and instantly 00:10:15.139 --> 00:10:18.179 became a pop culture fixation. You actually had 00:10:18.179 --> 00:10:22.080 major serious news outlets like the Chicago Sun 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:25.279 -Times and MSNBC treating the president's baggy 00:10:25.279 --> 00:10:28.179 pants as front page news. It was a massive talking 00:10:28.179 --> 00:10:30.419 point simply because it was such a stark departure 00:10:30.419 --> 00:10:33.340 from the tailored suits the public was used to 00:10:33.340 --> 00:10:35.580 seeing. And what I love about tracing this through 00:10:35.580 --> 00:10:37.720 the historical record is that we actually have 00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:40.519 his direct response to the media frenzy in a 00:10:40.519 --> 00:10:44.519 July. 2009 MSNBC interview, he was asked about 00:10:44.519 --> 00:10:46.559 the jeans and the criticism that he was dressing 00:10:46.559 --> 00:10:49.039 entirely counter to his very fashionable wife. 00:10:49.659 --> 00:10:51.860 And his defense was incredibly good nature, but 00:10:51.860 --> 00:10:53.700 also incredibly revealing about the psychology 00:10:53.700 --> 00:10:56.379 of the dad jean. He said, I'll quote his exact 00:10:56.379 --> 00:10:58.700 words here. Michelle, she looks fabulous. I am 00:10:58.700 --> 00:11:00.559 a little frumpy. Up until a few years ago, I 00:11:00.559 --> 00:11:03.080 only had four suits. I hate to shop. Those jeans 00:11:03.080 --> 00:11:04.799 are comfortable. And for those of you who want 00:11:04.799 --> 00:11:06.379 your president to look great in his tight jeans, 00:11:06.580 --> 00:11:08.840 I'm sorry, I'm not the guy. It just doesn't fit 00:11:08.840 --> 00:11:11.259 me. I'm not 20. That quote is a a fascinating 00:11:11.259 --> 00:11:14.360 psychological mirror to the SNL skit. Well, the 00:11:14.360 --> 00:11:17.059 fake commercial in 2003 was mocking women for 00:11:17.059 --> 00:11:19.919 prioritizing comfort and practicality over youth 00:11:19.919 --> 00:11:23.059 and fashion. Six years later, the president is 00:11:23.059 --> 00:11:25.519 explicitly claiming those exact same priorities, 00:11:25.659 --> 00:11:29.080 but without an ounce of shame. Right. He leans 00:11:29.080 --> 00:11:31.940 entirely into the stereotype. He openly admits 00:11:31.940 --> 00:11:34.779 to being a little frumpy. He highlights his dislike 00:11:34.779 --> 00:11:37.740 of shopping. And he definitively rejects the 00:11:37.740 --> 00:11:39.659 aesthetic pressure to look like a 20 -year -old. 00:11:39.929 --> 00:11:43.049 He is embracing the purely utilitarian, anti 00:11:43.049 --> 00:11:45.289 -fashion nature of the garment as a feature, 00:11:45.490 --> 00:11:48.409 not a bug. It is the ultimate defense of just 00:11:48.409 --> 00:11:50.570 wanting to be comfortable. He is essentially 00:11:50.570 --> 00:11:52.590 saying, yes, these are unflattering. I don't 00:11:52.590 --> 00:11:54.509 care. My waist doesn't hurt when I throw a baseball. 00:11:55.149 --> 00:11:57.929 But what's curious is how the media treated this 00:11:57.929 --> 00:12:01.399 moment long term compared to the mom gene. You'd 00:12:01.399 --> 00:12:04.059 think a presidential endorsement, even an accidental 00:12:04.059 --> 00:12:07.039 frumpy one, would make the term absolutely ubiquitous. 00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:09.399 You would think so, but the timeline shows a 00:12:09.399 --> 00:12:11.580 real discrepancy in how the two terms saturated 00:12:11.580 --> 00:12:14.340 the culture. The historical consensus is that 00:12:14.340 --> 00:12:17.080 dad jeans simply never gained the same enduring 00:12:17.080 --> 00:12:19.360 level of media attention or cultural traction 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:22.379 as the feminine counterpart. Yeah, mom jeans 00:12:22.379 --> 00:12:24.659 became a universally understood fashion category, 00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:27.600 while dad jeans remained a slightly more niche, 00:12:27.820 --> 00:12:30.470 secondary punchline. though it was certainly 00:12:30.470 --> 00:12:33.129 a potent enough punchline to echo for a long 00:12:33.129 --> 00:12:36.330 time. The record highlights a really funny callback, 00:12:36.509 --> 00:12:40.210 years after that baseball game. In March 2015, 00:12:40.690 --> 00:12:43.509 President Obama appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live 00:12:43.509 --> 00:12:46.230 for a segment where celebrities read mean tweets 00:12:46.230 --> 00:12:48.549 about themselves. And during that segment, he 00:12:48.549 --> 00:12:50.750 read a tweet that was still, six years later, 00:12:50.889 --> 00:12:53.429 specifically mocking him over those exact jeans 00:12:53.429 --> 00:12:56.889 from the 2009 pitch. Yes. And Jimmy Kimmel actually 00:12:56.889 --> 00:12:59.070 walked out onto the stage wearing a pair of high 00:12:59.070 --> 00:13:01.909 -waisted jeans himself, trying to jokingly defend 00:13:01.909 --> 00:13:04.580 the look in solidarity. That's great. It's amazing 00:13:04.580 --> 00:13:06.679 that a single pair of pants worn to a baseball 00:13:06.679 --> 00:13:10.019 game had that kind of comedic half -life. It 00:13:10.019 --> 00:13:11.919 shows that the concept of the dad gene was an 00:13:11.919 --> 00:13:14.580 instantly recognizable touchstone, even if it 00:13:14.580 --> 00:13:16.940 never quite eclipsed the sheer global ubiquity 00:13:16.940 --> 00:13:18.960 of the mom gene. So what does this all mean? 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:22.000 We started this deep dive with a single, highly 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:25.059 clinical encyclopedia entry tracing the physical 00:13:25.059 --> 00:13:27.899 anatomy of a pant with extra crotch space, a 00:13:27.899 --> 00:13:30.899 light wash, and a high waist. We watched that 00:13:30.899 --> 00:13:33.759 specific combination of fabric become the default 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:36.679 uniform of the late 80s, only to crash into the 00:13:36.679 --> 00:13:39.620 generational divide of the early 2000s. We saw 00:13:39.620 --> 00:13:41.639 it turned into a vicious, brilliant punchline 00:13:41.639 --> 00:13:43.860 on Saturday Night Live, coming to define the 00:13:43.860 --> 00:13:46.419 exact moment a woman supposedly surrendered her 00:13:46.419 --> 00:13:49.220 fashion sense to motherhood. We saw a sitting 00:13:49.220 --> 00:13:51.740 president go on national television and cheerfully 00:13:51.740 --> 00:13:53.960 defend the male equivalent, openly embracing 00:13:53.960 --> 00:13:55.799 his own frumpiness because he just wanted to 00:13:55.799 --> 00:13:57.620 be comfortable and wasn't trying to look 20. 00:13:57.799 --> 00:14:00.539 Right. And then we saw the ultimate cyclical 00:14:00.539 --> 00:14:04.000 plot twist. The tweens, teens, and college -aged 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:06.279 women of the modern era completely hijacking 00:14:06.279 --> 00:14:09.059 the mom gene. They took the ultimate symbol of 00:14:09.059 --> 00:14:11.080 maternal surrender, tucked in their body suits, 00:14:11.299 --> 00:14:13.620 threw on a belt, and turned the punchline into 00:14:13.620 --> 00:14:16.679 a global fashion staple. It's an incredibly wild 00:14:16.679 --> 00:14:18.940 ride for a garment originally designed just to 00:14:18.940 --> 00:14:20.980 give you some extra room in the zipper. It really 00:14:20.980 --> 00:14:23.960 is a masterclass in the lifespan of a trend. 00:14:24.299 --> 00:14:27.000 And I think what this historical journey ultimately 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:30.700 highlights is our society's constantly shifting, 00:14:30.899 --> 00:14:33.539 highly contradictory relationship with comfort, 00:14:33.740 --> 00:14:37.120 aging and style. Yeah. The labels mom and dad 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:39.559 were slapped onto these jeans as a way of fencing 00:14:39.559 --> 00:14:42.299 off a certain stage of life. They were linguistic 00:14:42.299 --> 00:14:44.639 boundaries meant to separate the trendy youth 00:14:44.639 --> 00:14:47.620 from the practical aging adult. I like that linguistic 00:14:47.620 --> 00:14:50.200 boundaries. But what this timeline proves is 00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:53.080 that fashion is entirely subjective and the markers 00:14:53.080 --> 00:14:55.879 of uncool aging are never permanent. They're 00:14:55.879 --> 00:14:58.279 always just sitting there waiting for a new generation 00:14:58.279 --> 00:15:00.419 to find them, completely strip away the original 00:15:00.419 --> 00:15:02.879 cultural baggage and decide that the thing we 00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:04.960 mocked yesterday is exactly what we want to wear 00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:07.460 tomorrow. This raises an important question and 00:15:07.460 --> 00:15:09.620 is something I want to leave you, the listener, 00:15:09.779 --> 00:15:12.009 to think about. as you look at your own closet. 00:15:12.210 --> 00:15:15.070 If the intentionally unflattering, baggier, comfort 00:15:15.070 --> 00:15:17.750 -first mom and dad jeans have already been fully 00:15:17.750 --> 00:15:20.210 reclaimed and normalized as trendy by today's 00:15:20.210 --> 00:15:22.889 youth, what completely uncool, purely practical 00:15:22.889 --> 00:15:25.149 parental stereotype will be the next massive 00:15:25.149 --> 00:15:26.990 trend to unexpectedly dominate fashion?