Video After The Jump
His message probably won't go viral like an "American Idol" audition, but one Brooklyn politician is urging young people to keep their pants off the ground.
State Sen. Eric Adams will announce Sunday the posting of six giant billboards in Brooklyn targeting the saggy trend.
The billboards go up Monday.
"This whole sagging pants culture seems to have swept the city and the country," said Adams, a Democrat.
"Children will be children. But as adults, we need to be on record and tell them they're doing something wrong."
The 22-foot-tall billboards will be erected along heavily traveled streets, primarily in Crown Heights.
Adams said he used $2,000 in campaign funds to pay for the billboards.
Each billboard features two male models whose pants are hanging so low their underwear is showing.
The message: "Stop the Sag!" and "We are better than this!"
The stop-the-sag movement got a huge boost earlier this year when "American Idol" contestant Larry Platt auditioned for the show.
Clips of his original "Pants on the Ground" song, which urged people to pull up their pants, exploded on the Internet.
"I saw it," Adams said of the Platt video. "I thought it was funny. But when you look at it more closely, you see how big this matter is. When we sag like that, we're playing into it. We look like clowns."
Adams has never participated in the fashion trend, which he said began among prison inmates.
"On a practical level, how do they even walk?" he wondered.
The former NYPD captain and co-founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care said he will send a letter to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein recommending a citywide dress code to prevent sagging in public schools.
Young men in Crown Heights were skeptical.
"It's more comfortable below the hip," said Saquan Spaulding, 19, sporting black jeans with black boxers held up with a studded belt. "It's good for [Adams] to try and change it, but I doubt it's going to happen."
Older people just don't get it, he said. "It's a young thing."
NY Daily News
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