History Main / BoyishShorts

** The Youngster Class of trainers (called Shorts Youngsters in Japan), which are always boys younger than the player character wear shorts and almost always battle with early-game ComMons such as Rattata or Pidgey, showing they're still beginner trainers who aren't too skilled compared to later trainers like Ace Trainers, Sailors, or Gym Leaders. (In [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Red and Blue]] their wearing shorts is directly noted by a Youngster on Kanto Route 3 (named Ben in the FRLG remakes), who says before he fights that he likes shorts because they're comfy and easy to wear--a line so unique it became memetic in the fandom.) Other classes of early or easy male trainers also wear shorts in this way. Bug Catchers, another early game trainer specializing in [[BigCreepyCrawlies Bug Pokémon]], all wear shorts and are young. Campers (previously called Boy Scouts) only wear shorts and are younger than the player character and more active, specializing in Pokémon found in the woods. Initially Schoolboys in the first two generations were pictured in shorts to make them appear as young kids in the early grades of school but later were aged up and put instead into full pants--showing they're older than the aforementioned Youngsters and the added Preschoolers (who are also in shorts), even if not adults compared to other trainers.

-->Youngster Ben, VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bart_5.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[CharacterCatchphrase Eat his shorts.]] He's always wearing them.]]

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bartsimpson.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:349: [[CharacterCatchphrase Eat his shorts]]. He's always wearing them.]]

A SubTrope of ClothingReflectsPersonality and MeaningfulAppearance. An adult man or teenage boy hit by the FountainOfYouth might find himself in these.

* In ''Theatre/TheMusicMan'', one of the signs of corruption that Harold Hill uses to rile up the citizens of River City into moral panic during "Ya Got Trouble" is asking the parents if they've noticed their sons re-buckling [their] knickerbockers below the knee because of the pool hall in town. The shorter knee-length knickerbocker pants are a sign of the boys still being in childhood, and the boys trying to wear them longer is a case of the boys trying to pass themselves off as older than they are (to get into said local pool hall).

# The person wearing them is a ''prepubescent boy''. At most, he's early into the teenage years--generally no older than fourteen. Once he's in high school, it's just clothing he's wearing unless he's trying specifically to evoke youth or childishness by wearing said shorts. Also, it's only boys that get this trope. Girls in shorts, regardless of their youth, are seen more as {{Tomboy}}s unless they're wearing them as ModestyShorts--or if older, they come off as a MsFanservice if they're super short and thus intended to be sexy.

-> ''"I like shorts! They're comfy and easy to wear!"''
--> Youngster Ben, VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue

The shorts help visually direct the boy as significantly younger than the older men (and sometimes teenage boys) around them, who are almost always depicted in ankle-length pants. It's that at the core, but it also helps show the boy as more active, free, childish, or immature than said adults. It may also show the boy as more naive, hopeful, joyful, [[CheerfulChild cheerful]] and/or playful than others around them. Or just of lower social status, with them being seen as a child easily by the mode of their dress.

# The shorts are, well, ''short''. Knee length at most. They aren't very far past the knee, but can be as high as mid-thigh for very young children. Calf length or capri length isn't short enough. Knickerbockers and shortalls (short overalls) count, but plus-fours are too long.
# The person wearing them is a ''prepubescent boy''. At most, he's early into the teenage years--generally no older than fourteen. Once he's in high school, it's just clothing he's wearing unless he's trying specifically to evoke youth or childishness by wearing said shorts. Also, it's only boys that get this trope. Girls in shorts, regardless of their youth, are seen more as {{Tomboy}}s unless they're wearing them as ModestyShorts--or if older, they come off as as MsFanservice if they're super short and thus intended to be sexy.

The last one is the hitch: shorts ought to be so much part of the boy's look to the point he's rarely depicted wearing anything else. Adult men wear shorts sometimes--say when on vacation, at the beach, or in the summer--but a boy in Boyish Shorts wears them practically all the time. The rare times this boy is wearing pants, it's either due to the weather (such as winter wear), a temporary costume change, or as a visual sign they're attempting to be, are, or appear more mature than their age. Pants make him more stuffy, mature, world-weary, and/or "grown up" compared to the immaturity, youth, lack of responsibility, and freedom afforded a boy. This also includes cases of adult characters being [[FountainOfYouth aged down]]; they're frequently put in short pants to indicate they're now--even if temporarily--children.

This is TruthInTelevision as historically it was considered lower class to dress a boy in long pants before a certain age--or if the boy decided on wearing the long pants himself, acting above one's age. Until the late 19th century, upper and middle class boys often wore dresses the same as girls from birth until they were three or four years old, about the time he was potty-trained. He was then breeched (put in his first pair of short pants), thus separated from the girls and mother socially in appearance. He then mostly wore short pants until he was considered mature enough to wear long pants regularly, generally about age twelve or thirteen. When the dresses stage was replaced with rompers, they were still followed by shorts. The shorts and kneesocks look didn't take off as much in the US during the era they did in England--the 1920s and 1930s--but did among the upper posh or preppy classes, and in the US it was often instead knickerbockers paired with high socks.

Shorts are also more practical in eras where new clothing took some time to procure, so outgrown clothing couldn't be easily or quickly replaced. Even post industrial revolution, when clothes could be replaced slightly more quickly, parents often used hand-me-downs to not have to buy tons of clothes for multiple children growing fast. Kids tend to grow long in the limbs before they grow out or up in the torso; thus, shorts can look fine on rapidly growing children regardless of their length where pants could look too short after a big growth spurt and expose ankles and socks--and thus have to be either continuously maintained or replaced to avoid the "highwater" look. Shorts are also a visual gender division from an early age since the mid 20th century, letting gender-concerned parents worry less that their baby boy might be mistake for a girl if dressed androgynously.

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'': [[FountainOfYouth Young Conan]]'s IconicOutfit mostly resembles the high school uniform he wore before being turned into a child--but as a child the necktie's replaced by a bowtie, the dress shoes with sneakers, and the long school pants replaced by a pair of shorts.
* ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'': Shorts are go-to wear for the two young boys: Nobita (reflecting the wimpier, foolish, childlike side of shorts) and well off Sueno (reflecting the wealthy upper class representation of them). They're both in contrast to neighborhood jerk Gian who usually wears long pants.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Henry}}'' created in 1932 by Carl Anderson, starring a bald boy of unspecified age (early school age, about eight). Henry is TheVoiceless (since he rarely has a mouth drawn) and routinely has childish adventures and foibles, and is always depicted in above-the-knee dark shorts and a reddish T-shirt, typical school clothing for school age boys of the era.

* ''Literature/TheGiver'': Invoked by the community. Boys in the highly-structured community are not even given long trousers to wear until they reach the Ceremony of Eleven (individual birthdays are not celebrated, so their age cohorts celebrates milestones as a group), a symbol of their immature age status and childhood in the Community. Wearing long pants is a right of passage for boys leading them closer to their adulthood, with the children all receiving their adult role assignments the next year. Jonas is already near 12 at the start of the novel and so he has already graduated to long-pants status.

* ''Series/OddSquad'' has some agents-in-training sport a pair of navy shorts as a contrast to the navy pants that the more-experienced Investigation agents--as well as agents in other departments like Science--wear.

** Ten year old Todd--in both the 1960s as Tutti's twin and the 1990s as Stacey's--wore shorts in many of his individual releases; this helped show him as younger than the mature adult male dolls like Ken. (He had pants in the first 1990s release, but this is part of the "cool look" and he came with soccer shorts.)

** Boy members of the Kelly Club, such as Tommy (Ken's younger brother) and Ryan, almost always came in knee-length shorts, showing them as preschoolers and thus even younger and more childlike than Todd. This is also true with the aged up early-elementary boys that are now part of Chelsea's line.

* All three lead protagonists of the ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' series (AKA ''[[VideoGame/EarthBound1994 Earth Bound]]'') are young boys wearing shorts, though this is more visible on their clay models and Ness and Lucas' ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' models than in pixel art. They're all young boys who are thrust into saving the world unexpectedly, but retain their boyish cheerfulness despite their skills and travels.

* Naive, imaginative Doug of ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'', along with his free-wheeling best friend Skeeter, are almost always seen in knee length pants. Averted with Roger, who wears long jeans all the time.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Hilda}}'': David (who is in the same class as Hilda and confirmed to be 11 years old in seasons 1 and 2) near always wears shorts--regardless of whether he is wearing his regular clothes, his Sparrow Scouts uniform or his school uniform. The only times he is seen wearing long pants is when it's snowing. And--while not necessarily immature--he is easily the least bravest of the three main kid characters, with many of the creatures they encounter frightening him.
* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': Bobby Hill through the whole series rarely wears anything but short pants, as he calls them--and often shows a lack of knowledge, naivety, and is easily manipulated or persuaded into getting himself into scrapes his father has to remediate. Even as he gets older and more thoughtful compared to past him, he's still less mature than his father Hank who is almost never seen in anything but pants. The same is true with his best friend Joseph Gribble, even after puberty takes hold and he shoots up in height--his desperate desire to be involved with girls and see Luann naked marks him as no more mature than Bobby.

* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': Phineas--who is at most ten years old--is always depicted wearing shorts, except in the winter--meanwhile his quiet, stoic stepbrother Ferb is shown wearing rolled up pants. In addition, when Phineas builds something, sometimes the person delivering the materials will comment on how young he is to be building it. In contrast, the adult male characters Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Lawrence Fletcher are almost always seen wearing long pants.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': [[Characters/TheSimpsonsBartSimpson Bart Simpson]] is close to the TropeCodifier. He (as well as a good many boys in Springfield Elementary School) are seen in knee length shorts as part of their default look, in contrast to the pants-wearing men around them--including their adult nemesis Principal Skinner. The times Bart specifically wears pants are few and far between, often for just the episode, and if it's not because of winter it's him appearing more mature (such as his white preacher suit in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E11FaithOff "Faith Off"]]).

* Princes and other young boys of the British royal family rarely wear anything but shorts until age eight (generally paired with knee socks, and almost never with sneakers; instead they're paired with buckled shoes or dress shoes). Etiquette expert William Hanson [[https://www.bustle.com/style/prince-george-shorts-royal-tradition-origin explained to Harper's Bazaar]] that in the royal family, trousers are considered clothing for older boys and men, not young boys. Shorts on young boys is a silent class marker of England society; it's "middle class" or "suburban" to put boys of society in full-length pants before about age eight. King Charles (and his brothers), Princes William and Harry, and Princes George and Louis have all been noted to wear shorts in public before eight. When Prince George wore pants to his uncle Harry's wedding at age four, it was noted by many British people to be a style out of typical protocol for his age.

* Some more posh schools in Europe (and higher level preppy private schools in the US) may decide that the lower level elementary boys (about US grade 5) will wear shorts and knee socks as part of the school uniform rather than be mistake for the older students of the higher level in their longer pants.

* Some more posh schools in Europe (and higher level preppy private schools in the US) may decide that the lower level elementary boys (about US grade 5) will wear shorts and knee socks as part of the school uniform rather than be mistake for the older students of the higher level in their longer pants.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Hilda}}'': David (who is in the same class as Hilda and confirmed to be 11 years old in seasons 1 and 2) near always wears shorts--regardless of whether he is wearing his regular clothes, his Sparrow Scouts uniform or his school uniform. The only times he is seen wearing long pants is when it's snowing or the episode when they were ninja. And--while not necessarily immature--he is easily the least bravest of the three main kid characters, with many of the creatures they encounter frightening him.

** The Youngster Class of trainers (called Shorts Youngsters in Japan), which are always boys younger than the player character wear shorts and almost always battle with early-game ComMons such as Rattata or Pidgey, showing they're still beginner trainers who aren't too skilled compared to later trainers like Ace Trainers, Sailors, or Gym Leaders. (In [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Red and Blue]] their wearing shorts is directly noted by a Youngster on Kanto Route 3 (named Ben in the FRLG remakes), who says before he fights that he likes shorts because they're comfy and easy to wear--a line so unique it became memetic in the fandom.) Campers also only wear shorts and are younger than the player character and more active, specializing in Pokémon found in the woods. Initially Schoolboys in the first two generations were pictured in school shorts to make them more like young kids in the early grades of school but later were aged up and put instead into full pants, showing they're older than the aforementioned Youngsters and the added Preeschoolers (who are also in shorts), even if not adults compared to other trainers.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': [[Characters/TheSimpsonsBartSimpson Bart Simpson]] is close to the TropeCodifier. He, as well as nearly every boy in Springfield Elementary School, are seen in knee length pants as part of their default look in comparison to the pants-wearing men around them--including their adult nemesis Principal Skinner. The times Bart specifically wears pants are few and far between, often for just the episode, and if it's not because of winter it's him appearing more mature (such as his white preacher suit in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E11FaithOff "Faith Off"]]).

* Princes and other young boys of the British royal family rarely wear anything but shorts until age eight (generally paired with knee socks, and almost never with sneakers; instead they're paired with buckled shoes or dress shoes). Etiquette expert William Hanson [[https://www.bustle.com/style/prince-george-shorts-royal-tradition-origin explained to Harper's Bazaar]] that in the royal family, trousers are considered clothing for older boys and men, not young boys. Shorts on young boys is a silent class marker of England society; it's "middle class" or "suburban" to put boys of society in full-length pants before about age eight. King Charles (and his brothers), Princes William and Harry, and Princes George and Louis have all been noted to wear shorts in public before eight. When Prince George wore pants to his uncle Harry's wedding at age four, it was noted by many British people to be a style out of typical protocol.
* In many western-style weddings, the ring bearer is dressed in a suit that matches the groomsmen, but with shorts and knee socks rather than pants. Especially if they're under five. This shows they're part of the groom's side but still a child.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants:'' In the episode "Spongebob Longpants" [[Characters/SpongeBobSquarePantsTitularCharacter Spongebob]] switches his normal shorts for long pants. He starts to be perceived as mature and elegant; Patrick calls him a "man", and Spongebob even passes his driver's license test due to wearing long pants. This is in contrast to his otherwise regular childish behaviour.

# The person wearing them is a ''prepubescent boy''. At most, he's early into the teenage years--no older than fourteen. Once he's in high school, it's just clothing he's wearing. Also, it's only boys that get this trope. Girls in shorts, regardless of their youth, are seen more as {{Tomboy}}s unless they're wearing them as ModestyShorts--or if older, they come off as as MsFanservice if they're super short and thus intended to be sexy.

A SubTrope of ClothingReflectsPersonality and MeaningfulAppearance. An adult man hit by the FountainOfYouth might find himself in these.

* All three lead protagonists of the ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' series (AKA ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'') are young boys wearing shorts, though this is more visible on their clay models and Ness and Lucas' ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' models than in pixel art. They're all young boys who are thrust into saving the world unexpectedly, but retain their boyish cheerfulness despite their skills and travels.

'''Note:''' All examples must explain ''why'' the shorts matter to the character or image of the boy wearing them or state that the shorts are tied to a representation of his youth, not just state that he has them on or else it's Administrivia/PeopleSitOnChairs.

'''Note:''' All examples must explain ''why'' the shorts matter to the character or image of the boy wearing them or state that the shorts are tied to a representation of his youth, not just state that he has them on or else it's PeopleSitOnChairs.

* All three lead protagonists of the ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' series (AKA ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'') are young boys wearing shorts, though this more visible on their clay models and Ness and Lucas' ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' models than in pixel art. They're all young boys who are thrust into saving the world unexpectedly, but retain their boyish cheerfulness despite their skills and travels.

* All three lead protagonists of the ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' series (AKA ''VideoGame/EarthBound'') are young boys wearing shorts, though this more visible on their clay models and Ness and Lucas' ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' models than in pixel art. They're all young boys who are thrust into saving the world unexpectedly, but retain their boyish cheerfulness despite their skills and travels.

'''Note:''' All examples must explain ''why'' the shorts matter to the character or image of the boy wearing them or state that the shorts are tied to a representation of his youth, not just state that he has them on or else it's PeopleSitonChairs.

A SubTrope of ClothingReflectsPersonality and MeaningfulAppearance. Examples should explain ''why'' the shorts matter to the character or image of the boy wearing them or have said shorts tied to a representation of his youth, not just state that he has them on. An adult male character hit by the FountainOfYouth might find himself in these.

* All three lead protagonist of the ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' (AK''A VideoGame/EarthBound'') series are young boys wear shorts, though this more visible on their clay models and Ness and Lucas' ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' models than in the pixel art.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bartsimpson.png]]

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': Dipper Pines wears short grey pants; he's actively running around the woods and also younger and more immature than teens and other characters that he comes in conflict with. This puts him in contrast with deceptive, conniving Gideon Gleeful (who is certainly not childlike) and aloof teenage Robbie who sees him as a child tagging along with the teens.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Bart Simpson is close to the TropeCodifier. He, as well as nearly every boy in Springfield Elementary School, are seen in knee length pants as part of their default look in comparison to the pants-wearing men around them--including their adult nemesis Principal Skinner. The times Bart specifically wears pants are few and far between, often for just the episode, and if it's not because of winter it's him appearing more mature (such as his white preacher suit in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E11FaithOff "Faith Off"]]).
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants:'' In the episode "Spongebob Longpants" Spongebob switches his normal shorts for long pants. He starts to be perceived as mature and elegant; Patrick calls him a "man", and Spongebob even passes his driver's license test due to wearing long pants. This is in contrast to his otherwise regular childish behaviour.

This has TruthInTelevision as historically it was considered lower class to dress a boy in long pants before a certain age--or if the boy decided on wearing the long pants himself, acting above one's age. Until the late 19th century, upper and middle class boys often wore dresses the same as girls from birth until they were three or four years old, about the time he was potty-trained. He was then breeched (put in his first pair of short pants), thus separated from the girls and mother socially in appearance. He then mostly wore short pants until he was considered mature enough to wear long pants regularly, generally about age twelve or thirteen. When the dresses stage was replaced with rompers, they were still followed by shorts. The shorts and kneesocks look didn't take off as much in the US during the era they did in England--the 1920s and 1930s--but did among the upper posh or preppy classes, and in the US it was often instead knickerbockers paired with high socks.

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bartsimpson.png]]