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    To Discuss: Justin Bieber's Pants

    He favors a style with a crotch that hangs almost to his knees but are like leggings everywhere else. WHY?

    We all know Justin Bieber's going through some stuff right now. His girlfriend won't take him back, his voice is dropping, his biceps are getting bigger. It's a lot for a cherubic 18-year-old to deal with on top of always making sure his skin is Cover Girl campaign–worthy. Plus, he has to manage the angst of being mega-famous as he becomes a man, which is maybe why he grabs his crotch on stage all the time. Unless — the crotch-grabbing is necessary to keep his pants from falling down? Because they're not as tight around his waist as they are from the knees down, where they fit, most confusingly, like leggings?

    At Sunday night's American Music Awards, Bieber wore at least two styles of drop-crotch pants. One leathery red pair for his performance that came with the shoes attached, and another sweatpants-like black pair for his red-carpet photo op.

    And Bieber has some fashion sense, right? He knows not to wear leather harem pants with his leather tank top, which I think we can all agree would look ridiculous. He knows how to mix textures and accent with metallics, as he demonstrated at his Barclays Center show in New York just days ago.

    But the extreme crotch drop on the pants is puzzling for such a fashion savant. Designers tried to make harem pants happen in 2009, and they never took. People saw those droopy crotches hanging listlessly on the racks of Zara and Topshop and Mango and they said NO, overwhelmingly favoring pants with crotches that fit against their bodies. Fashion did not make us all look like fools that time!

    Now maybe Bieber missed this, because in 2009 he was 14 or 15 and it was still cute for him to wear purple jumpers everywhere and ignore trends. But if he wants to get his life in order, he might consider taking up the pants a little bit, because the gray jersey ones he wore with a matching gray jersey tank top to try to reconcile with Selena made him look a little insane, since the whole outfit had the appearance of footed onesie pajamas, which only made Bieber look like some sort of scrub that spent the whole day on his couch, crying into his chenille throw and eating Baked Lay's.

    Bieber also wore his white drop-crotch leather leggings to perform at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which made sense since it's really hard to look ridiculous on the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show stage when you're standing next to the models.

    But just when Bieber's pants were seeming as absurd as Pink's splotchy rainbow-colored skin, Nicki Minaj's polar bear costume, and, oh God, everything in Christina Aguilera's performance, PSY came out.

    WITH MC HAMMER! Their crotches so low to the ground, they made Bieber look like a little pansyish sprite who hasn't graduated to big-boy drop-crotch pants yet.

    Maybe what Hammer and PSY were trying to show us is that harem pants DO have a chance — just as long as they're worn ironically.