All Hail the Shorts and Hoodie Guy
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On November 15, 2022, Pennsylvania Senator-elect John Fetterman showed up for his first day of orientation wearing a navy suit and a light blue tie. This was the right call for two reasons. One, he had to. It's a rule. Two, wearing a suit and tie showed the world—including Fetterman's not-unsubstantial contingent of vocal detractors—that the notoriously casual politician can clean up and abide by the dictates of decorum and occasion. And, hey, he cleans up nice!
But, as someone who grew up in Pennsylvania and watched Fetterman's campaign closely, there was something just a little bit disappointing about not seeing him rock up to the Capitol in a pair of basketball shorts and a Carhartt hoodie, his de facto uniform. Because Fetterman is a Shorts and Hoodie Guy if ever there was one, and Shorts and Hoodie Guys everywhere are well overdue for a round of applause.
Let's be clear: I have not always felt this way. For a long time, the Shorts and Hoodie Guy struck me as a lamentable cultural anomaly, like anime body pillows or Fetterman's now-defeated Senatorial opponent Mehmet Oz. There was a baseline level of chaos about the look—your core warm and insulated, your leg hairs flowing in the breeze—that rattled me. Surely, if it's cold enough for a hoodie, it's cold enough for pants. Right? Right!??!
Then something happened: I tried it for myself. It was half-accidental. I needed to pop over to the bodega and I didn't feel like changing out of my shorts and T-shirt, but it was a little chilly out there. I threw on a hoodie. I ran my errand. I returned. And I realized that I was quite comfortable the whole time—physically, and, to my surprise, aesthetically.
I started paying closer attention and noticed I saw the combo all the time, on fashion-y guys doing it with designer pieces and hyped sneakers and on entirely not-fashion-y guys wearing relatively anonymous hoodies with mesh basketball shorts. I started thinking about it—too much, really—and then I started searching to the answer for my core question: If the Hoodie and Shorts thing is so impractical, so chaotic, so wrong, then why do so many dudes love it?
I found the best explanation I could have hoped for in the one place I didn't expect it: Quora. A user named Lucas Davis articulated it so well, I'm going to quote him at length:
As ramps season is to foodies, the shorts-and-hoodie micro-season is brief and beautiful and worth unabashedly celebrating even if most people around you don't get the excitement.
You get everything: legs free to bask in 55-75 degree weather. An upper half that keeps you toasty on brisk morning dog walks, but lets you shed your top when that 4pm coffee run comes around and the sun's beating down.
The anticipation of warm weather but the stylistic opportunity that comes with layering. Sunshine, but not sweat. Shorts-and-hoodie-season is fleeting but glorious.
There it is. There it is. Shorts and Hoodie Guys are not impractical. They are deeply practical, readying themselves for the vagaries of transitional weather in a manner that many do not employ but that may well prove more effective than traditional methods. And they are not chaotic. They are optimistic. They leave the house in the morning when the clouds are hanging low and the wind is brisk and bracing and think, "Yeah, but what about when the sky clears and the sun shines and I'm out there doing my thing, living my best life?"
Practical. Optimistic. These are, to my mind, very good qualities to find in a politician. Which brings us back to Fetterman. Yes, he rocked a suit for his first day, and he'll keep wearing a suit because that's how it is in Washington, D.C. right now. But even though he can't live the self-confessed dream of doing his job in shorts, he can still bring that Shorts and Hoodie Guy energy to the Capitol. And we could all do with a little bit more of that energy, no matter where we are or what we're doing.
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