Thailand Elephant Pants

Submission 858

About

Thailand Elephant Pants refers to a pair of cheap, light, elephant-patterned shalwar pants commonly worn by tourists visiting Thailand. The pants became the subject of memes and criticism in the late 2010s for their perceived prominence among Thailand's tourists, continuing to inspire memes throughout the early 2020s.

History

According to an article on the "History of Thai Elephant Pants" by bodegahostels.com,^[1] the traditional name for the light, breezy style of pants commonly featuring the elephant pattern is "shalwar," which comes from the Persian and Turkish work meaning "pants." It is unclear when exactly the distinct elephant pattern was first produced, however, the article attributes their popularity to being "very cheaply mass-produced, festooned with brightly colored Thai or Asian symbols, are pretty comfortable to wear." An article on the Tourist Bangkok^[10] website claims you can get the pants for between 70 to 250 baht depending on where you shop, which is around $2 to $8 U.S.

Online, the popularity of the pants has been noted as early as August 4th, 2013, when they were discussed by the xventures Wordpress^[2] blog as something the author never wants to wear, writing:

Most of the backpackers on the Southeast Asia trail are young, a little bit tree-huggy, like to drink and smoke, and wear these cotton, baggy, long pants with elephants on them. I refuse to wear elephant pants, but some of my favorite travel buddies I’ve met love them. “They’re so comfortable!” Yes, I could imagine.

Online Presence

The elephant pants became an increasingly popular talking point online throughout the 2010s and 2020s, also inspiring memes. On June 13th, 2015, Souvenir Finder^[3] published an article reviewing the pants as a souvenir. On November 9th, 2017, the Facebook^[4] page Elephant Pants of Shame was opened, judgementally sharing images of people wearing elephant pants between then and 2020 (examples shown below).

On July 11th, 2019, /u/Uhh_Charlie posted a meme to /r/suspiciouslyspecific^[5] about the meaning behind the pants in Thailand, garnering over 13,000 upvotes in five years (shown below, left). On January 20th, 2020, SCMP^[6] published an article titled, "Want to look like a local in Thailand? Don’t wear ‘elephant pants.'"

On October 28th, 2022, Facebook^[7] page The Travel Bible posted a fake Spirit Halloween costume meme about the pants, garnering over 40,000 reactions and 4,600 shares in two years (shown below, right).

On May 22nd, 2023, the @bangkok.explore Instagram^[8] page shared a video filming numerous Thailand tourists wearing the pants, captioned, "POV: You go to tourist spots in Thailand," garnering over 98,000 likes in 10 months. On July 11th, the video was shared in an article by Asia One^[9] titled "This choice of clothing is so popular among tourists in Bangkok that netizens are amused." On September 26th, TikToker^[10] @thailandvsglobe posted a similar video, garnering over 200,000 views in six months (shown below).