09

Once again several of the most active threads yesterday were threads that I've already discussed and will skip today. As a result, just as was the case over the past two days, I am starting with what was actually yesterday's fourth most active thread. That thread was titled, "HoCo dresses- Could they be any shorter" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. At first I assumed that residents of Howard County have been wearing especially short dresses for some reason. Later I deduced that the thread's title actually referred to homecoming dresses. I am used to DCUM's annual tradition of bashing girls' high school prom fashion choices, but I guess that this is now going to be a twice a year event. The original poster writes that the dresses "literally couldn't be any shorter or tighter". But that was said last year and will be said again next year. Therefore, I can comfortably predict that they can, in fact, get shorter and tighter. I find this sort of thread to be especially tedious. There is no better way to make yourself sound old and out of touch than by complaining about what "the kids today" are wearing. Making some old foggy clutch her pearls is basically a rite of passage for high school kids. As one poster wrote, "It is the God-given duty of teenagers to wear/do/say things that are shocking to their elders. I’m sure the prehistoric cave parents stood around and clucked about the appalling trends in mastodon skins." There is rarely anything new in these threads. This one, just as all the others before it, has posters who agree with the original poster that nobody should be allowed out of the house dressed in such a manner. Others tell the original poster to mind her own business. Still others defend the dress choices. Some posters cloak their disapproval in notions of practicality, arguing that the dresses are uncomfortable and make bending over difficult. Others suggest that regardless of the propriety of wearing such clothing, many of the girls don't have the body type necessary for the dresses. A number of posters complained about being "forced" to look at girls' private parts. In response, a poster says, "I have no idea what those posters talking about private parts are on about. They sound like internet perverts." A popular tactic was to compare the attire to that worn by prostitutes. This seems to especially raise the hackles of those supportive of the girls. Parents of girls who dress in such styles argue that this is not a battle worth fighting and question why others care about it so much. One poster asks, "why do the choices of unrelated teen girls get people so furious?" Another issue that posters bring up is that only girls' clothing is policed in such a manner while the boys are ignored. This is excused by a poster who suggests that it is because boys aren't the ones showing up "mostly naked". Some of the anti-short-dress crowd suggest that girls dress in such a manner because they lack self-esteem. In response, some posters who support allowing girls to dress however they want suggest that it is actually those posters who are offended by the dresses who have issues. As one poster responded to them, "You also have serious hang ups with sexuality. Yours and, weirdly, other peoples. And you’re beyond strange [because] of it".