The New York Times received backlash after publishing a style piece suggesting more men are wearing crop tops.
The publication reported, “Though men have been known to wear stomach-baring garments when they exercise or go to the beach, lately crop tops can be seen on guys at stores and bars. More modest styles hit right at a waistline, but many are cropped short enough to expose a navel.”
Continuing, the style piece reads, “Some wearers are making theirs by taking scissors to old T-shirts; others buy them off the rack, often from stores’ women’s sections.”
Ben Barry, the dean of fashion and an associate professor of equity and inclusion at Parsons School of Design in New York, stated crop tops were briefly “the epitome of American straight masculinity in football” in the 1980s.
Additionally, Barry stated men wearing crop tops is an “openness in masculine fashion to truly embrace a variety of aesthetics” and comes at a time of “shifting dynamics of gender.”
Despite the claim, a slew of men on Twitter slammed the New York Times for its piece.
“No we most certainly are not,” one user wrote.
No we most certainly are not: https://t.co/aHGGW9Ha8e
— Eamon Javers (@EamonJavers) July 9, 2023
I feel like they're leaving out some key adjectives that describe these particular men.
— Adam B. Coleman, Spike Cohen's Greatest Nightmare (@wrong_speak) July 9, 2023
No. Straight men are not. Actually, none of my gay friends would wear this nonsense. Maybe single guys who don't know how to do laundry and they accidentally shrunk their favorite shirt and refuse to stop wearing it, but other than them, no one I know is wearing this tripe.
— Jo the Banlaoch. 🇺🇸 (@cailleach_feasa) July 9, 2023
Dear men, please don’t do this
— Rebecca📖 (@Rquietlyreading) July 9, 2023
Awful take. Whoever wrote this, keep fishing.
— Bill Blue Line (@bill_baruch) July 9, 2023
Bring back back masculine men.
— 𝒢𝑒𝓁 ❣️ (@LttleGel) July 9, 2023
Another user responded, “I feel like they’re leaving out some key adjectives that describe these particular men.”
“Dear men, please don’t do this,” another user wrote.
One user claimed no man he knows, regardless of their sexual orientation, is wearing crop tops.
“Maybe single guys who don’t know how to do laundry and they accidentally shrunk their favorite shirt and refuse to stop wearing it, but other than them, no one I know is wearing this tripe,” they continued.
Another user called for the return of “masculine men.”
“Awful take. Whoever wrote this, keep fishing,” one user wrote.