Free Knife With Your Hoodie?

Downsizing of material goods coupled with an upsizing of paranoia sounds like stabflation. I always thought a broad sword under a trenchcoat was something to worry about, not some fashion kiddy with a penknife.

Beware the Boy Scouts, they may leave wood chips on your porch steps.

Originally posted by Regenmacher
Downsizing of material goods coupled with an upsizing of paranoia sounds like stabflation. I always thought a broad sword under a trenchcoat was something to worry about, not some fashion kiddy with a penknife.

Hey now, you're privileging one country's media-enhanced bogeyman over another country's media-enhanced bogeyman.

One country's trenchcoat mafia is another country's hoody.

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
this thread is worse than the news

everyone is stereotyping ppl who wear hoodies as thugs

disgusting

Can someone in the UK please explain the whole hooded sweatshirt thing? I watch UK shows all the time and people always make jokes about people wearing hoodies being thugs and car thiefs.

In north america tons of people wear hoodies everyday but I don't thing anyone would think they are a criminal and If you have a blue collar job you probably wear one everyday its cold outside. It seems weird is all

How did sweatshirts get this reputation in your country?

Just curious.

Just reread this thread and all I have to say is there sure are alot of posters clinging onto these false stereotypes about the UK and the USA.

It's pretty sad.
Grow up people.

Originally posted by drock905

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
this thread is worse than the news

everyone is stereotyping ppl who wear hoodies as thugs

disgusting

Can someone in the UK please explain the whole hooded sweatshirt thing? I watch UK shows all the time and people always make jokes about people wearing hoodies being thugs and car thiefs.

In north america tons of people wear hoodies everyday but I don't thing anyone would think they are a criminal and If you have a blue collar job you probably wear one everyday its cold outside. It seems weird is all

How did sweatshirts get this reputation in your country?

Just curious.

It is practically synonymous with the rough equivalent of your gang culture. That's not to say everyone that wears a hoody is a some young thug or a thief &c. and I've yet to come across anyone genuinely making that particular sweeping statement, but for many hoody-wearers it's a self-identifier as being part of a particular demographic. It's not quite the same, but in a sense, it's like wearing gang colours.

People have tried to defuse or diminish this point by remarking that isn't too dissimilar to people wearing motorcycle jackets or the big boots associated with a specific skinhead demographic in the past, how both items also have legitimate uses (I say this as an ex-skinhead myself). But this merely highlights the fact that hoodys or the actual item of clothing aren't being singled out at all. There's nothing inherent in the jacket that turns people into thugs, merely that they're associated with a certain social strata who exploit aspects of the garment. People are just concerned about this particular generations thugs and thieves who just happen to wear hooded jackets.

I can appreciate the idea that they're useful for when it's cold and it is often cold in Britain, however, when you see someone walking around with his hood up around even in the summer (cue comments about the coldness of British summers) it's a bit naive to think it's because he's cold. It's similar to the on-topic debate about knives; it's about a time and a place. There's a time and a place for knives and there's a time and a place for having your hood worn up and pulled down over your face.

It's not just a case of someone having their hood pulled up either, the hood is often worn so it obscures the face and is often worn at the same time as a scarf that covers the lower half of the face. Even as a conspiracy theorist who's concerned about the encroachment of a surveillance society I have to question the need for this type of anonymity. I really, really doubt the majority of the hoody wearers that people are concerned about are familiar with genuine anti-surveillance society arguments but are acutely aware of how they're great for hiding your face, if you catch my drift.

[edit on 5-10-2008 by Merriman Weir]

Nobody seems to have mentioned this yet, but the same chain store, T K Maxx, has now been caught selling a walking stick with a 20 INCH SWORD hidden inside. Now tell me what uses that has (apart from killing and wounding). That being said, I wish I'd have known before so I could have bought one

news.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by yellowbeard


I'm 74 - I know the benefits of cane swords.

The shear shock value of seeing the thing is enough to make any one think twice. I recommend them for anyone who must use a cane in order to walk around, given that we are already at disadvantage with age and disability and arthritis and bad eye sight. Basically, any advantage someone my age can get is for the best.

Since people my age are common victims, chosen for our frailness as an easy target it is important that we have something on hand to defend ourselves with. When I was 20 I could have killed my current self with one punch, It doesn't take much to kill a man my age.

I've never had to use my canesword. I have only had to draw it once on a middle-aged man in a leather jacket and jeans (no 'hoodie' no youths)who had a knife pulled on me, so I can imagine teenagers would be even more cowardly and flee at the sight of it. But then again, I've never been assaulted by youths and I don't live in England.

But I really am worried about what has become of England. This fearfulness allows rights to be taken from them as has been done. I certainly won't be vacationing in that paranoid police state ever again, I don't have the time for it. The whole country is Ridiculous. Almost everything happening and almost all of the popular opinions that have allowed the country to slip this far are indeed worthy of ridicule. The shear paranoia of it all....

I'm glad I left when I did.





[edit on 5-10-2008 by TruthTellist]

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy

Originally posted by groingrinder
For a hundred and five bucks you should get a damned machete instead of a dinky Swiss Army Knife!! What a rip off.

Those are my sentiments exactly!

Think the economics are lost in translation here, its £105, which is roughly $210, or probably a lot less by the time this thread has been posted

I just wanted to comment on the whole "hoody" issue.

This youth culture is wearing these hoodies and hiding their faces because they live in a place that has deemed it neccesary to monitor everything they do. (IMHO)

I don't live in the UK so Im not completely informed on everything there but...

If I lived somewhere that had CCTV monitoring my every move, had listening posts, I heard they have garbage inspectors, a stripped down right of self defense... i sure there's more...

I dont mean to say that someone's country is ridiculous (especially with me in the US) but it seems to be a bit much if you ask me...

If I lived in a place like that, I (especially as a youth) would be very rebellious... I would be as an adult also.

The reasons the crimes are committed and those who commit them should be addressed, instead of making inanimate objects illegal.

New laws do not stop crime, in fact they create more crime.

I hear comments about knife crime is on the rise... uhm... you made guns illegal so the knife is the next weapon on the list, so ya, knife crime will go up. Its completely logical and should have been part of the gun rights arguement in your country when the anti-gun laws were proposed. So this was a KNOWN outcome.

Is it really going to take the banning of everything, so that people are killing each other barehanded before people realize they have to address the underlying cause of the crime and not the tool utilized in the crime?

On the topic of the store selling the hoody with a knife. Im not sure how UK economics works, I'll assume it free market for this. The store should not be forced by the government to stop selling it. (i dont think that happened) Customer opinion should drive the store to make that decision. (which I think happened)

just my 2 cents

Originally posted by XTexan
I just wanted to comment on the whole "hoody" issue.

I don't live in the UK so Im not completely informed on everything there but...

If I lived somewhere that had CCTV monitoring my every move, had listening posts, I heard they have garbage inspectors, a stripped down right of self defense... i sure there's more...

i have never been to the US but i find it hard to believe that there aren't cctv cameras all over the place catching your every move (in the cities anyway) in any american cop show or movies they are always using cctv footage to catch the criminal.

reply to post by whoswatchinwho


Yes, in private establishments and residences there are CCTV cameras, however in public on streets, public parks and what not, there are not any, aside from the cameras to catch people speeding at least.

As far as I know its much more prevalent in the UK...

Originally posted by yellowbeard
Nobody seems to have mentioned this yet, but the same chain store, T K Maxx, has now been caught selling a walking stick with a 20 INCH SWORD hidden inside. Now tell me what uses that has (apart from killing and wounding). That being said, I wish I'd have known before so I could have bought one

news.bbc.co.uk...

You can buy the exact same "cane sword" at most novelty shops...Spencers...Hottopic...I would actually love to see some punk kid pull one on me!!!! lol Kid pulls sword I pull gun....Kid cries, I get a nifty new walking stick.

reply to post by DrBones666

Yeah back then driving home from the club was no big deal either.DRUNK DRIVING kills more than hoodie accessories,mate.

reply to post by yellowbeard


I guess the next thing WILL be an RPG attached to a pair of tracky bottoms.

I instantly distrust, on sight, anyone I see wearing a hoody. It could be the gang culture connection, it could be the Unabomber association. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

(edit) With the hood up a person's looks are much changed, and I always suspect he or she is attempting to move about incognito. Though I know it makes me look a bit like a homeless person, I prefer stretchy nylon caps during cold weather. Or, the hoody makes a person look like a oversized, uncute infant impersonator.

[edit on 6-10-2008 by WhamBamTYM]

[edit on 6-10-2008 by WhamBamTYM]

[edit on 6-10-2008 by WhamBamTYM]

[edit on 6-10-2008 by WhamBamTYM]

[edit on 6-10-2008 by WhamBamTYM]

People are scared out of their pants anymore.

A swiss army knife with a 2'' blade and a sword?

How's that song go? "Give me a break, giiive me a break, give me a break..."

Tulsa, OK
BEWARE OF THE HOODIE !
A fat black teen jumped from his bicycle and shot at a white yuppie kid. Cops arrived and caught the fat kid who tossed the pistol in a front yard.

The white teen apparently called the cops when he suspected trouble. The cops cuffed the fat boy and did a metal detector search for the gun.

Cops walked up to me and friends drinking and smoking while polishing Porsche Turbos and BMW and Audi's on the drive circle and says "These black kids are a big problem with crime, not the Mexicans, he was certain that Mexicans shot mostly other Mexicans, the problem is black teens with no parenting.

Cops said the hoodie gives away the criminals, cop says "beware of the hoodie", they are gangs and carry weapons and look for trouble on their bikes and scooters.


Cop was young UFC fighter type, looked like a clean Marine and looked concerned about the hoodie criminal youth that was bringing police choppers over nice neighboorhoods .

reply to post by dodgygeeza


I wish they would do away with the hoodie as a fashion statement. It is quite clear that the use of the hoodie has become to conceal one's identity, for wrongdoing. I am not saying that everyone who wears one is a robber, but on the news most robberies are being performed while wearing a hoodie. When I see a customer come in with a hoodie pulled up and sunglasses on I cringe, everyone of them look just like the grainy tapes on the evening news of smash and grabs, store holdups, ect. The idea of placing a knife into the pocket is directly marketing to these criminals.

reply to post by XTexan


A camera is worthless when you cannot see the face, hair, eyes, ect.

Originally posted by Retseh


It's a Swiss Army penknife for crying out loud, you would think they were selling these things with a built in RPG7.

If someone is going to go around stabbing people, they will not suddenly be given the thought when they discover this tin opener complete with a thingy for removing stones from horse's hooves in their pocket, they will get a decent knife and THEN go around stabbing people.

Dear lord, what has happened to common sense in the UK. You could cause a stampede with a balloon on a stick these days.

Excellent post...I give you a star!

The same thing happened to common sense in the UK as it did in the U.S. As society becomes more and more liberal, the more and more common sense is lost!