About

Fat and Wearing Jeans is a catchphrase used in a series of memes based on a one-star Letterboxd review for the dystopian horror film The Long Walk, criticizing the premise of the movie, the user writing, "Why would you volunteer for this contest? And then once you’re chosen, why would you show up fat and wearing jeans and then want the others (your new bffs?) to succeed?" The review was published by Letterboxd user Bennett Vierhus in late September 2025 and inspired memes in late October after it was reposted on X / Twitter.

Origin

On September 24th, 2025, Letterboxd^[1] user Bennett Vierhus submitted a one-star review of the film The Long Walk, a movie based on a Stephen King story about a group of 50 young men and boys who volunteer to walk for as long as possible without stopping, with contestants who stop walking for too long getting killed by soldiers accompanying them. The review criticizes the film and, most notably, the protagonist, Garraty, for "being fat and wearing jeans" to the walk. It gained over 430 likes in a month. The review reads:

The whole premise of this movie was terrible. Why would you volunteer for this contest? And then once you’re chosen, why would you show up fat and wearing jeans and then want the others (your new bffs?) to succeed? If the world is truly dire enough for this to be a desirable contest, this movie showed absolutely zero context or background for these boys’ desperation. Acting and dialogue were very poor – a lot of just screaming the f word over and over and expecting me to believe you’re a passionate emboldened teen actor. The ending was a rotten cherry on top and the fact that they try to squeeze tears out of the audience for this sadistic storyline is outright laughable (I laughed in the theater)

On October 26th, 2025, X^[2] user @richardhrkness posted a screenshot of the review, writing, "this is frying me, fat and wearing jeans ?!?! 😭," garnering over 13,000 likes in three days.

Spread

The review inspired numerous memes using the phrase "Fat and Wearing Jeans" in October 2025, especially on X / Twitter.

On October 26th, 2025, X^[3] user @mcvarraty made a post referencing the review, writing, "'Why would you show up fat and wearing jeans?' is going on the iceberg," garnering over 44,000 likes in three days.

On October 27th, X^[4] user @foxribs posted a screenshot of the film's character McVries, writing, "Sometimes showing up fat and in jeans is better than not showing up at all," garnering over 12,900 likes in two days.

On October 28th, 2025, the post by @richardhrkness was reposted to the /r/TheLongWalk^[5] subreddit, garnering over 370 upvotes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References