About

Jorts, a portmanteau of the words "jean" and "shorts", refers to a style of cut-off denim garment which covers the upper portion of the legs. In pop culture, denim shorts are often mocked as tacky and unfashionable in a similar vein to Crocs brand shoes.

Origin

On August 31, 2005, Urban Dictionary^[2] user theSuperJesus submitted an entry for "jorts," defining them as a type of jean shorts "worn mostly by children and douchebags."

Spread

On October 22nd, 2012, an entry for "jorts" was created on the online dictionary Wiktionary.^[1] In June 2013, the fashion blog Style Girlfriend^[4] published an article about "acceptable" styles of jorts for men to wear. On May 22nd, 2014, the men's interest blog Esquire^[5] published an article defending jorts as a fashion choice. The following day, BuzzFeed^[3] published an article titled "Dear Men, You Seriously Need To Stop Wearing Jorts," arguing that only women look attractive in the denim garment. On March 31st, 2015, Tumblr user slavicinferno^[8] posted an image titled "A Quick Guide to Jorts," listing several reasons to wear the denim shorts (shown below, left). In June, many Twitter users mocked box Floyd Mayweather for being photographed wearing jorts at a basketball game (shown below, right).^[9]

On July 19th, Redditor bouncingsouls submitted a post about the popularity of jorts in Europe to the /r/malefashionadvice^[6] subreddit, where it gained more than 890 votes (87% upvoted) and 380 comments prior to being archived.

On Tumblr

Tumblr users often photoshop a denim pattern on to various characters along with the hashtag #jorts in reference to the garment.^[7] On February 9th, 2016, Tumblr^[10] user ask-crystal-gems published a photoshopped image of the character Rose Quartz from Steven Universe with the jean pattern superimposed over her dress (shown below, left). On February 15th, Tumblr user threedogs-toaster posted a photoshopped image of Pepe the Frog featuring the denim pattern (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References