About

Dear Boys, Dress Like This refers to a series of jokes popular on Twitter where a person writes "Dear boys, dress like this" and then supplies a humorous, absurd picture of a person in an outfit.

Origin

On October 12th, 2014, Twitter user @briemckinnon^[1] tweeted an image of a boy in a long-sleeve shirt and jeans and captioned it "dear boys, DRESS LIKE THIS," gaining over 8,900 retweets and 27,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

The tweet structure saw use as a meme over the course of the following several years. For example, a tweet from October 28th, 2017 showing Grimace from McDonald's, gaining 25 retweets and 84 likes (shown below, left). A tweet from @blaisewell on February 26th, 2018 showing TheReportOfTheWeek gained 15 retweets and 56 likes (shown below, right).

The meme became much more popular after a tweet by @PNFRINGE^[2] on February 27th, 2018, featuring Simon Cowell in a white t-shirt, jeans, and boots that gained over 27,000 retweets and 107,000 likes (shown below).

Twitter users who perhaps did not understand the joke, mocked the outfit, particularly the fit of Cowell's jeans in relation to the boot. However, parodies after that tweet began growing more popular. For example, a tweet by user @SJSchauer on the 28th showing a man in an ill-fitting tank-top gained over 3,200 retweets and 12,000 likes (shown below, left). A tweet by @JoeJohnsonIce featuring Jackie Chan gained 350 retweets and 1,100 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References