Pro Pants!

Posted on January 9, 2012 by missalix

I have never participated in the No Pants Subway Ride. That might seem a bit strange to you since one of the main themes of this blog is doing some weird and stupid stuff within the city. I can’t really explain it, but it just hasn’t really appealed to me. Everyone seems to know about it anyway, very rarely do people get caught by surprise when this happens. Actually, this Gawker article can better explain why I’m not really into the No Pants Subway Ride (though I will admit that seeing the pantsless when we were in Madrid this time last year was kinda cool).

From Pro Pants 2KX

A few days before this year’s NPSR, I found out about the pro-pants movement, started by Jason Eppink in 2009 (all photos in this post from his website – I was too busy telling people about pants to take my own photos!). From his website:

Pro Pants is a returning counter-movement to Improv Everywhere‘s annual No Pants! Subway Ride. The Pro Pants mission is to inform pantsless riders about the joys and advantages of pants and to persuade them to accept pants into their lives. The campaign’s methods are highly effective: an estimated 100% of pantsless people enter a long-term pants-full lifestyle within 24 hours of encountering a Pro Pants representative.

Pamphlets for distribution

I thought this was a pretty funny idea, and much more creative than the no pants subway ride (these days, anyway). When I arrived that afternoon, they had us help fold their pamphlets that we were to distribute to the pantsless. There were a few different pamphlets one could have received, including “The History of Pants” “The Science of Pants” and “Are Pants for Me?”. They had some sandwich boards like Jason wore in the picture above that I got to wear the whole day! Except I didn’t even think to have someone take a photo of me wearing it! I know a lot of photos were taken of me and people asked to take pictures with me, but I haven’t been able to find any on the internet, grr! Ah well, you get the idea.

Confused by pants

95% of the people that I spoke with were good sports about it, and most played along not knowing about pants and letting me spread the good word. Even those with pants on wanted a copy of our pamphlets! One of my favorites was a man from Colombia insisting that he must take a picture of me and my pants so he can tell his country about this new invention! As I was telling people facts about pants, my favorite line I used was, “Did you know that George Washington was the first president to wear pants?” It’s a documented fact!

Happy to learn about pants

All-in-all it was a really fun day. Lucky for the pantsless, it was a pretty mild day and at least I wasn’t cold (it must’ve been the pants… and my jacket and scarf). I was kinda bummed one of my friends couldn’t make it out, but I had a good time anyway. I even ran into the one person I knew who was going to be participating in the NPSR which was funny. I’m hoping I get get a group of my friends to join me next year!