Perhaps, but there are also a lot of people with not-pretend jobs that can and do wear cargo pants (and shorts!). The implication as originally written was that if you can or do wear such clothing at work, you don’t have a ‘real’ job.

That’s patently ridiculous. Heck, some of my highest earning years of late had me working with customers where I’d be more likely to see flip-flops than a collared shirt.

I'll agree cargo pants are military cosplay if you'll agree that denim jeans are cowboy cosplay.

Blue denim jeans pretty much are cowboy cosplay. That’s why they got popular and why they remain popular. The close association with Marlboro Man rugged outdoorsy “masculinity” is an enduring part of their appeal. Even if people aren’t consciously aware of that association driving them when they appreciate a pair of blue denim jeans decades of advertising has undoubtedly inserted that stereotype firmly into the commmon (sub) conscious. Even the premium Japanese denim brands play with the semiotics of denim as “honest” or “rugged” or “no nonsense” or “not fancy” all of which are tropes drawn from the mid-century American ideal of cowboys as a picture of perfect masculine achievement.

Better comparison: trousers are how middle (and upper middle) class Americans cosplay as their millionaire (and billionaire) CEOs.

Yeah, okay. That was easy.

And some people just like having lots of pockets and don't care how it looks.

And some people don't think tight pants look good.

For the people who want a ton of pockets on their pants, cargo pants are pretty much the only option. Do you earnestly believe that all of these people "just like military cosplay"?

Edit: Or maybe I'm wrong, and there are other kinds of pants with many pockets.

How are you defining cargo pants?

These have ten pockets. https://shop.bluffworks.com/products/ascender-chino-regular-...

"Some X are Y" does not imply "all X is Y"; I held the former while you infer I hold the latter.

Fair enough, but I inferred the "all X is Y" bit from the first sentence, in which you said "I don't think you missed the mark" regarding a paragraph which, IIRC, did essentially imply that cargo shorts are by nature deceitful.

I'm not sure cargo pants themselves are "cosplay". A lot of male fashion comes from military - peacoats, bomber jackets, parkas, trench coats, pretty much any boots, etc. And a lot of it comes from jobs - trucker jackets, denim, engineer coats, boiler coats, etc etc.

It becomes kinda cosplay when you have guy in desert camo cargo pants with huge belt with multitool on it, in desert combat boots and beige t-shirt ... in an office, coding Java.

But I'm the guy who goes there wearing M65, jeans and Doc Martens so who am I to talk.

Also you can get slim and stretch cargo pants, which removes the biggest complaint fashion people ususlly have with cargo pants (OMG HUGE BAGGY) and are more techwear/streetwear than military. Unless you get them in camo.

Thinking cargo pants are "lesser" for being associated with manual labor is just disgustingly classist.

The article says that people who like cargo pants are unemployed idiots.