January 11th,
2015, was the day of the annual No Pants Subway Ride. This novel event, started
for the first time in 2002 with just seven participants in New York City, has
grown to incorporate more than sixty cities worldwide.
The premise
of the event is that transit passengers ride trains without wearing anything
but undies on their lower halves. The top half must be as if they were going
about their normal day. No acknowledgement of pantslessness is to be made.
Growing over
four years from seven riders to one hundred and fifty in New York City in 2006,
but 2013 sixty cities had people coordinating the event.
The event
was the brainchild of Improv Everywhere, which is a New York prank collective,
whose motto is “We Cause Scenes”. Their
aim is to create joyful chaos in public places. The fact that many
participating cities are shivering through winter does not dampen enthusiasm!
This year,
tens of thousands of people participated worldwide – with four thousand in New
York City alone. The oldest registered participant was eighty four years young,
and the youngest was just seven months old. Other cities which participated
include Chicago, Tokyo, Bangalore, Madrid, Copenhagen, London, Jerusalem,
Hamburg, and even a pantsless ride on a ski gondola in Fukushima, Japan.
Even
Australians jumped on this bandwagon (and let’s face it, our climate is much
more conducive at this time of year!) Trains and trams from Bondi to Adelaide
had pantsless riders.
The founder
of the event, Charlie Todd, has stated that the event is now an “international
celebration of silliness”.
Missed The
No Pants Subway Ride for 2015? Don’t despair. World No Pants Day is still to
come – held in numerous nations of the world on the first Friday in May. This
previously informal, college event became official in 2000, and has been
embraced in colleges and universities in the US, Canada, Sweden, Finland, the
UK and Australia.
Best get
some nice undies!
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