It's vogue these days for the boozhie media to lambast bros and their bro-thren. The political class callously mocks bros’ common sense, and with its latest salvo aims even lower, at bros’ fashion sense.
GQ leveled a malicious attack at the proud physical manifestation of all brodom: a bro's going out shirt.
The wild American bro is most recognizable by its ubiquitous nighttime camouflage: thigh-length swaths of cotton, collars pointed outward like airplane wings, sleeves rolled up and flared out like a Musketeer's. This is known in bro circles as the "going-out shirt." It is the bro's uniform whenever he goes to clubs, bars, house parties, or—god help us—dates. It is always worn untucked with jeans (boot cut, of course), and is considered the "dressed up" alternative to a T-shirt or polo. Whether gingham or striped, rumpled from the hamper or neurotically over-starched, it is, in short, an abomination.
The going-out shirt is a sacred talisman. Like the process by which Bruce Wayne dons his cowl to become Batman, a bro engages in elaborate rituals that climax in "the shirt before the shirt."
The more the sleeves of a going-out shirt are rolled up a bro's arm, the better to kick life's ass with.
Rolled sleeves also hasten a bro's ability to score a lady's number.
The going-out shirt is the banner beneath which bros seize the night by fusing alcohol with questionable judgment.
Ladies are helpless before the going-out shirt's charms.
What GQ fails to understand is that, to a bro, a going-out shirt is nice, but not nice enough to protect against the risk of falling victim to a spurned lover's thrown drink or a drunken feast catered by Papa Johns.
Nothing more manly than photobombing a pride of fillies while wearing one's going-out shirt.
But, as any bro knows, the goal is to have the going-out shirt end up being worn by someone else.
