r/CuratedTumblr • u/AscendedDragonSage Title-ist Punster • 12h ago
Shitposting Cell the garment
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u/GameboyPATH 11h ago
It could be an expression of vulnerability. Being seen without pants would be an embarrassing situation that makes us feel vulnerable, and the heart is one of our most vital organs that we wouldn't want to be vulnerable.
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u/ErsatzHaderach 11h ago
agree, this is how i primarily took it. whimsy is also vulnerability, in its way.
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u/ComradeJohnS 10h ago
do people even buy the heart boxers? lol. I figured it was just a trope for tropes shape and wearing shorts is more acceptable than tighty whiteys lol.
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u/velvetelevator 4h ago
They are suddenly popular again thanks to Matt Dinniman!
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u/ComradeJohnS 4h ago
that’s true haha, I meant when they existed before the dungeon crawling books haha
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u/Possible-Deer-311 11h ago
This is exactly how I took these scenes in cartoons. The tone wasn't emasculating at all. OOP is looking for stuff that isn't there imo
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u/RealRaven6229 10h ago
As a kid I took it as the dude wearing girly looking underwear (even though it was boxers) so I suspect the actual effect varies based on person. I grew up in a place that cares a lot about gender roles and whatnot so it's not surprising. Hearts are girly is something I always knew. Very tasteless and antiquated gag and worldview though obvs
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u/IGaveAFuckOnce 2h ago
On the other end of things growing up watching those cartoons I associated them with manliness because I only ever saw men wearing them. Still feel that way about them to this day.
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u/cowboy-tea 6h ago
I mean, the parent comment is saying it's vulnerable, which is essentially the same as emasculating in the mid-20th-century cultural context where this trope originated. The classic example of this trope involves a self-important macho character where it's supposed to be amusingly incongruous and embarrassing for them to have a "girly" pattern on their underwear. And after being exposed, they often cross their legs and cover themselves in an "effeminate" way which is part of the joke.
It is/was supposed to be emasculating, it's just harder for us to see it that way nowadays because heart underwear are such an overused stock cliche, and because people in this sub are more chill about men wearing "girly" things
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u/loved_and_held 8h ago
Maybe?
THe usual trope is red hearts on pink underware. Pink is generally seen as a girly color, and hearts are generally seen as a girly thing. The idea that a man would wear clothing wioth a combination of both would be somehow unmanly.
The thing about the trope though is that it only works if you see those things as girly; it's effectivness as emasculation is entierly ddependant on how you see gender norms.
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u/toxicpsychotic 7h ago
i'm pretty sure the cartoon underwear with hearts is usually white, not pink
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u/milkteethh 5h ago
weirdly I was watching batman: the animated series yesterday and saw a character had pink boxers with red hearts and noticed it specifically because they're usually white lol
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u/Dapper_Magpie 10h ago
Please stop sharing your interpretation on this I'm already so hard it hurts
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u/loved_and_held 8h ago
I think the intended interpretation was hearts where somehow unmanly, so the embaressment is from a particularly vulnurable position+unmanly clothing.
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u/extremely-cynical 11h ago
Nobody ever wears plain underwear, apparently. It's always a goofy pattern.
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u/DradelLait 11h ago
I'd wear a goofy pattern but they're more expensive the piece than a plain three-pack so plain it is. Not like anyone's seeing them anyways.
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u/YsengrimusRein 10h ago
It's not for anyone else's pleasure, it's for my own amusement. Sure, no one is likely to see my fun clover-print boxers, but no one is likely to notice my Looney Tunes socks either, but they amuse me and that's all that matters
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u/jimbowesterby 7h ago
My big issue is there aren’t many patterns I see that I really vibe with, and the ones I do I never find in my size. Kind of a bummer, if I was given free reign with a fabric printer i could make some hella sick patterns lol
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u/KonoAnonDa You are now manually breathing. 11h ago
I always assumed that they were just a commonly worn type of underwear back in the day.
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u/JumpingJacks1234 10h ago
Me too. I assumed they were common for married men to celebrate their marriage and caught on from there.
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u/Nalagma 11h ago
You know, maybe a heart patterned pair of boxers is what I truly need from life?
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u/skraptastic 11h ago
Maybe some pink crocks, a battle jacket, bandana, and some spiked knee pads?
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u/kaflarlalar 5h ago
You forgot about the heavy breathing beautiful, well-lotioned, always-bare feet. With the perfectly manicured toes. And then just to tie the whole delicious little ensemble together, a vibrant pop of color from a toe ring.
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u/FenrirAR 9h ago
I have a feeling that they're gonna come back in a big way once the TV series comes out
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u/rorikenL 11h ago
Mongo is appalled!
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u/smorgasbard 11h ago
Took me a bit of scrolling to find it.
Crazy how 1 dude turned that old trope into an instantly recognizable person, purely on their boxers.
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u/ourseveres 9h ago
honestly my perception of it as a child was "well i guess boxers with hearts are the peak of masculinity then" and i literally never questioned it. i thought that was like. a classic guy thing. a tough guy thing even. like having a heart tattoo with Mom on the inside.
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u/TrioOfTerrors 11h ago
When I was in high school 20 years ago, it was popular for guys to wear those for prom or homecoming when they thought they had reason to believe their date would be removing their pants.
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u/CautionarySnail 11h ago
I always thought of it as endearingly goofy, that a person who is otherwise serious was wearing these and it brought them a secret joy knowing that only specific people got to know that they had a quirky or whimsical sense of humor.
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u/generalkriegswaifu 11h ago
Really? I thought it was code for them being a romantic or horny or something.
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u/KaleidoscopeKelpy 11h ago
I thought it was just so they definitely read as boxers and not as possibly-shorts
But no one told me that, I just.. made it up in my head at some point LOL
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u/wunderbuffer 10h ago
Same, I though they were the flirty boxers, like what they choose wear for a hopeful date huh
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u/GalaxyPowderedCat Only on Tumblr for daily cat posts 10h ago
Same. I just thought it was embarrassing but I didn't connect the dots and had emasculation in mind.
Just like "it's embarrassing walking around in your underwear, here, a gig."
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u/Timturtle11 11h ago
You might be over thinking this. I've seen people actually wear them, I think tis just a joke.
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u/Zizi_Tennenbaum 11h ago
Or sometimes they're just what you happen to be wearing when the world ends and the dungeon opens, and you can't get rid of them without losing the CON boost and the Protective Shell spell.
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u/Conscious_Smile8235 9h ago
It wasn't emasculating? It was just a funny thing to see. What was ever "emasculating" about it?
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u/Eghtok 9h ago
It's emasculating in the sense that hearts are a "girly" pattern, so a guy would be embarassed to be seen wearing them.
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u/Conscious_Smile8235 9h ago
Yeah that's... not what was going on with the heart pants thing, I guarantee.
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u/CitizenHuman 10h ago
I always thought that was just the most comical underwear of the time. Assuming most men were wearing Walter White style tighty whities at the time....
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u/Kiwi_Doodle 10h ago
I don't think they were supposed to be either. It's just embarrassing to be practically naked.
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u/Captain_StarLight1 9h ago
I just thought it was funny when the big macho dude had heart shaped underwear, not because it makes him less manly, more that it’s a funny contrast. Like the contrast between silly little guy and big fuck-off hammer in fighting games and stuff. Just not things you’d expect to be together.
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u/VestigeOfVast 11h ago
Me in 2010 watching the wimpy kid movie: Haha, Fregley’s dressed as a unicorn and Rowley idolizes a preteen pop star. Is this supposed to imply every boy in this world has a secret soft and girly side?
Me in the 2020s as a brony and later bluey fan:
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u/Clean_Imagination315 Hey, who's that behind you? 11h ago
Alright, show of hands: who else started actually wearing them?
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u/Random-Rambling 6h ago
We're they? I just thought it was meant to be "funny" without being overtly lewd.
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u/Curious_Question8536 6h ago
Emasculating and embarrassing are related, but they aren't the same thing.
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u/Odd-Painting2596 11h ago
I mean, yes but in media.
Like it was used as a stand in for "exposing someone's manhood" in a metaphoric sense also, like, "Oh no, your shame laid bare!".
You are not supposed to take the movie implication and accuse the director of meaning this about YOU the viewer.
Is this why you psychos keep attacking the creators of animated shows?
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u/YUNoJump 11h ago
Pretty sure they mean it emasculates the male character, not the viewer. Oh this dude secretly has cute stuff hidden away, that makes him GIRLY and therefore worse.
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u/Odd-Painting2596 11h ago
Yes, and most the other comments on this post are people defending themselves, for some reason.
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u/YUNoJump 11h ago
The trope relies on the audience also believing cute stuff is emasculating, so it makes sense to challenge it I guess.
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u/jackalope268 11h ago
It took me a google search to realize we were talking about underpants and not sports
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u/JoeMcBob2nd 7h ago
Pants fell down while I was wearing Minion themed underwear once cuz it was all I had clean. Embarrassing moment but I’m sure the aunt who bought them for me was giggling from her grave
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u/jancl0 1h ago
I do find it funny the implicit messaging that every guy wears them, they are always what you see when their pants fall down
So the emasculating part isn't really choosing to wear them. The emasculating part is having them exposed. In other words, a real man wears pink love heart boxers whenever he wants, he just never let's anyone see his underwear, which is a weirdly progressive message
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u/ImShyBeKind Always 100% serious, never jokes 2h ago
This feels a lot like a self post not on a Sunday...
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u/blindcolumn stigma fucking claws in ur coochie 11h ago
I think it's visual shorthand to make it unambiguous that a character is in their underwear and not just wearing shorts. It also draws the viewer's eye.