Ditto. Most of the IT and Dev folks I've dealt with are fairly well paid and rock several certs and degrees. They can afford houses, soap, showers, and other basic life accouterments.

Mind you, they're not always the best put together folks -- flabby 30 something dudes in ill-fitting shirts and cargo shorts, yes cargo shorts in 2019 -- but most of em clearly had a shower recently and brushed their teeth.

can you knock off insulting people for wearing ill-fitting clothes and cargo shorts?

That's just unnecessary.

It certainly doesn't help that my options for shorts seem to be: cargo shorts, "dress" shorts, jean shorts, and athletic shorts. Given those options, I'll take my cargos every single time. I don't look better in the other three, and I'm certainly not going to wear athletic shorts all the time. If I'm not wearing shorts, I just wear regular jeans.

I'm not trying to win a fashion show at work while sitting in my office not talking to clients. I'm wearing clothing that's functional and comfortable. Only random people on the internet seems to actually care about this, and can never seem to explain why they care so much. It usually comes down to some spurious nonsense about "neckbeards."

Agreed. This seems so judgmental and creates a hostile environment for a lot of people.