It means you are a follower. Seriously, who knows. It would be a question that each individually would have to answer for themselves.

@bkcunningham An iconoclastic follower. Maybe. He followed his older brother in being a real outlier among the nearly 2 billion Muslims on Earth.

They are having a bad hair day but they don’t want the brim shielding their eyes?

I have no idea.

For some reason I thought of this

Backward cap wearing seems entrenched in only certain groups. I can’t speak for Boston, but here in the Bay Area it seems to be “bro’s” between 30 and 45 years of age. Everyone else seems to think it was stupid or outgrew it. The kids 16 – 24 around here wear the oversize flat brim baseball caps. The hipsters wear porkpies.

Dzhokar was probably trying to fit into the southie older kids styling. Nothing to do with any ideology.

Nothing, really.

In general I think it means they sometimes like to wear their caps backwards.

It means nothing. If this is becoming a topic for commentary, pundits have run out of meaningful insight.

They’re being “cool.” Just like we were being cool when we tore the hems out of our jeans, covered them with patches, and went barefoot everywhere.

In my case it means, “The visor interferes with the camera body when I attempt to put the viewfinder up to my eye.”

It means the same thing when I turn my hard hat around.

They think they’re being cool.

I think it’s kind of cool! Kind of rakish, you know. Don’t like the sagging pants much, though.

@Dutchess_III When I see a person with their hat on backwards I immediately assume the person is lazy.~ (just messin’ with ya) :)

@jonsblond Don’t forget the foodstamps, probably stolen and hidden under their cap! :) And sagging pants means they have a million dollars worth of stolen foodstamps hidden in the butt of their jeans. Of course their jeans are going to sag!

In a similar way to @CWOTUS I turn mine around when playing golf if i’m hovering over a particularly important cash riding on it putt…visor gets in my eye line.

If it’s not the smoke, the visor gets in your eyes.

straight down the middle…ba, bu, bu,bum, bum…terrible Bing Crosby impression, doesn’t translate to text all that well :D

No, it doesn’t! But I got it. Badda badda bing! :)

Who are you talking to @avaeve? And what are you talking ABOUT?

Etpro

If you’re responding to his comments in the detail part of his question, you need to read it over a little more carefully.

If he is not implying anything then there would be no reason to ask this question. He obviously asked it because he does want to make a big deal out of non-mainstream behavior.

The way we dress DOES say something about us though. And “mainstream” is relative. People who sag their pants and wear their caps backwards are mainstream for their group. He’s not wanting to make a “big deal” out of anything. The whole purpose of this site is to ask questions to prompt discussion. So that’s what he did.

Means they’re fucking up the hood G style, dawg.

I really don’t think it means anything, nor do I believe that any kind of fashion statement is a hint at violent behavior. I mean, people have been wearing their caps backwards for ever. In fact, isn’t that an eighties thing to do? I didn’t think it was cool anymore. lol
I’m sure it can say something about the person, any type of fashion can, but I don’t think it’s any indication of anything more than fad or personal style.

I guess some styles can be attributed to something more though.

Back when I lived in Winnipeg, for about ten years, there were a lot of youth gangs around, who wore baggy pants, track suit jackets and caps with the bill almost curved into a tube. Most of the guys in one of these gangs let their hair grow on top of their head, and shaved off the sides. Then they would tie up the long hair into a ponytail or a braid that would hang from the top of their head. Each gang had their own two colors that were always represented on their clothes. There was Deuce, their colors were black and blue, IP (Indian Posse) that was black and green, they were the ones with the hair thing. And there was MW. (Manitoba Warriors, forgot their colors) Besides clothes color and specific traits, they were all easily recognized as gangsters though.

They often harassed and beat up people, robbed places and many times it got real serious and the police were constantly on the lookout for some gangster or another. I grew to be scared of them after some of them did shit to me, and easily learned to recognize them from far away because of the type of clothes they wore.
Eventually, biker gangs sort of invaded all the shitty areas of Winnipeg and then the youth gangs quickly fell apart, or moved on elsewhere. Today, I still see people often dressed in such fashions as I described, but they’re completely harmless.
Styles and fads can be stuck on things I guess, but they alone don’t say much about the person besides being some individualistic statement or another. That despite what I talked about with the gang members. Not all dudes with leather jackets and big beards are out to kidnap you, and don’t most serial killers dress in a way that you’d never notice them among the masses?

@Dutchess_III

The way we dress says nothing. There is currently a multi-millionaire living in the penthouse at trump plaza. He dresses like a completely bum. That is his usual dress wear. You would assume he is some dirtbag based on his clothing and you’d be wrong.

Yes, it does. And if I saw a guy dressed like a bum, I’d wonder if he needed some help. Depending on the circumstances, I’d offer him some help.

As to ETPro’s question….I don’t think you can see things like a murderer by the way they’re dressed. (Did anyone mention Ted Bundy?) Other things you can see because some people go out of their way to dress so that people will assume things about them. If they’re a gangsta wannabe, they’re going to dress to display that.

And, off topic, I don’t feel that ebonics has butchered the English language. It has changed it, but that what languages do. They change and evolve.

Doesn’t matter what you would do, you would still be wrong about him because you judged him based on appearance. His clothes were not a representation of who he is or what his status is.

Ebonics hasn’t changed the standard of English. Where do you see ebonics taught academia?

Sometimes I would be wrong, sometimes I would be right. But no matter.

Doesn’t have so much to do with the question, but here’s a small article on one of the gangs I talked about, Deuce.

Doesn’t talk about their clothing or colors though. :/

Just look at Superman, he wears his underpants over the top of his suit & no fucker thinks twice…

I had several teenage boys, friends of my son, living with us one year. One of them flew his “colors” (The Mexican flag) as a window curtain in the upstairs window. I liked it, actually (And wanted to find other flags of other countries to “fly” as curtains), but BOY we had a lot of LOUD cars drive by at all hours of the day and night! The THINGS they must have been ASSUMING (and rightly so) by him flying his colors.

That traffic dwindled to almost nothing after he moved out.

It means nothing about them as a person. Making such personal judgments based on someone’s fashion choices is never a good idea.

What does wearing Birkenstocks say about a person? Nothing. Just because they’re quite possibly the most hideous shoe ever made doesn’t mean anything about a person that likes them.

I think a person who wears Birkenstocks likes to dress comfortably and casually, which says something about them. I lost my daughter’s Birks in the lake the first time I went jet skiing. :(

Would I be wrong?

It says that they’re Islamic terrorists, just like this guy, and the dude pictured to the link in the details of the OP. ;-)

Wearing a baseball hat backwards says something very specific. First of all, only the following tiny demographic does this:
– white males, ages 2 – 55, income $10k/yr to $200k/yr, suburban, urban, and rural, high school to phd., liberals and conservatives, hetero, homo, bi, people with glasses and without
– black males, ages 2 – 55, income $10k/yr to $200k/yr, suburban, urban, and rural, high school to phd., liberals and conservatives, hetero, homo, bi, people with glasses and without
– hispanic males, ages 2 – 55, income $10k/yr to $200k/yr, suburban, urban, and rural, high school to phd., liberals and conservatives, hetero, homo, bi, people with glasses and without
– asian males, ages 2 – 55, income $10k/yr to $200k/yr, suburban, urban, and rural, high school to phd., liberals and conservatives, hetero, homo, bi, people with glasses and without

So, I would say that it says the following about them: They are male.

@Dutchess_III I’m about to go to the local grocery to get a few things for dinner. I’m wearing a pair of comfy athletic pants todayy. Will everyone at the store assume I just finished exercising or jogging? Besides doing the dishes, I’ve done nothing but sit on my ass all day.

Yes, they will, if they think about it at all. They might think you’ve been doing yard work, too, or something.

@Dutchess_III Which is exactly the point. Making an assumption about a person based on what they’re wearing doesn’t mean you’re correct in that assumption. What is your point here?

That people DO make assumptions based on a lot of things…the way a person is dressed, the way they talk. The thoughts may be fleeting, and might be completely wrong, but they are made. People often dress in a specific manner to give a specific impression. Not so much when we run to WalMart and places, but in other ways.

@Dutchess_III Who here has said that assumptions are not made?

We’re going in circles. So, we agree that assumptions are made, and we agree that those assumptions can be wrong (but sometimes they can be right.)
Are we done?

When I have my cap on backwards, it means the brim of my hat doesn’t allow me to get a proper sight picture through my scope. I usually don’t wear baseball caps because of this.

lol

It says that we prioritize some pretty ridiculous shit as symbolic around here.

Edited by me.

D-o-u-c-h-e-b-a-g. Simply put. Nothing more nothing less.

@Dutchess_III Indeed.

I was just confused at what your argument was in your response to my answer. It sounded a lot like you were disagreeing, but it seems we were discussing different topics.

It was getting confusing!

Maybe it means their favorite baseball players are catchers and they want to imitate their look. That is where it all started isn’t it? I have worn a cap like that when playing tennis. It keeps my head cooler than a sweatband but soaks up the sweat just as effectively. I never liked the brim interfering with visibility when going after an overhead. Lleyton Hewitt I think cemented into the australian fashion scene for both tennis players and wannabes.

I assume people who wear cowboy hats and cowboy boots are cowboys.

I think we should blame it all on Magnum PI. Until he started wearing a baseball cap and sporting that big stache, only baseball players and little league boys wore baseball caps frontwards or backwards. Now look what he started, everyone wears the bloody things! And hairy faces too!

It means whatever the wearer thinks it means. Apparently, it also means whatever the witness thinks it means. It’s all about personal perspective.
I am a hat wearer. I wear hats about 90% of the time I am awake. I’ve worn them frontwards and backwards. I’ve even worn some sideways. Usually for no reasons other than I think it looks better a certain way, I’m physically hot/sweating, or the sun is in my face too much. It’s that simple.

Tom Selleck. That is certainly a nice image. Tom Selleck in a backward ballcap. And nothing else. Yes.

@bkcunningham You know, Tom Selleck is three times my age, certainly old enough to be my grandfather, but that is a sexy man. Seventies porn-stache and all.

I wear baseball caps backwards sometimes, especially when I’m working around my telescope so I don’t knock any equipment with the bill of my cap, or if I’m on stage and the sun is coming from my back and so people can see my face when I sing.

I guess that makes me a d-o-u-c-h-e-b-a-g

And here is what George Carlin has to say on the matter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIk4RkjEOAc

Porn-stache. Lol

@Rarebear is a porn star??? Who woulda thunk! Next in the telephone line!

What do Tom Selleck, Jeff Foxworthy, and Ron Jeremy have in common?

Seventies. Porn. Stache.

:)

OMG. George Carlin. “See my beard? It’s not so weird. Who would be afeared…..of my beard?” Johnny Carson.

@jonsblond A bad hair day I get. Wanting sun in my eyes, I don’t get. :-)

@Lightlyseared Ha! Hats off to you for that one. That’s hilarious.

@zenvelo Likely so. Thanks.

@marinelife I disagree. It at least means they like to wear hats. I don’t like to wear a hat. Doing so sometimes gives me a headache. So if I do wear a baseball cap, it’s always to keep the sun out of my eyes.

@SuperMouse In general, I would think you are right. But then, we are not in general, are we? :-)

@glacial I didn’t get the question from a pundit. I made it up myself. So I guess it means I have run out of worthwhile things to talk about. But then anyone who knows me has known that for a long while.

@Dutchess_III They’re being “cool.” Just like we were being cool when we tore the hems out of our jeans, covered them with patches, and went barefoot everywhere. I never did any of that. I was always trying to be hot.

@CWOTUS Yeah, I have swiveled mine around for that reason on the rare occasion when I do don a baseball cap.

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room I’m sure that’s a part of it, except when folks like @CWOTUS and me do it for very practical and temporary reasons.

@ucme Yeah, that makes perfect sense too. You’re in the Bass-Ackwards for Practicality Club with @CWOTUS and me.

@avaeve Fortunately, I got back to this thread way too late to take the flame bait which the mods removed. But I did not ask this to condemn anyone of imply that iconoclastic behavior is a sign of human failing, and I don’t think anything of the sort. I’m quite the iconoclast myself, and I tend to seek out friends that are as well.

I went out of my way in the 2nd paragraph of the question details to state that I was in no way attacking oddball wardrobe preferences, just asking what, if any meaning we can draw from the fact that someone want’s to go against the crowd.

@Symbeline Yeah, I don’t remember seeing it till the 80s, but to someone my age, that doesn’t equal forever. :-)

I’ll get to the rest when I clear the desk of some pressing work. Gotta go keep clients happy now.

If I’m wearing my baseball cap backwards, it’s usually because I’m feeling like a bad ass tomboy, youthful, in-touch with masculine side, kinda gal who’s ready for a road trip and a pack of American Spirit cigs.

Actually I just returned from a run with my dog. Actually she pulled me on the scooter/training sled thing. My cap was backwards so the wind didn’t blow it off. And I like the bad ass tomboy line, I think I feel that way too. GA @rainbowunbroken.

@rainbowunbroken & @rooeytoo Hats off to both you delectable dykes. ;-)

My first thought is “DICKS”

My second thought is they will look back on embarrassing photos later on with a bit of a laugh at themselves. I do at the big hair and should pads!

Rakish