The other day, “jeggings” was a trending topic on Yahoo.com.

No, really. A trending topic. There was such a frenzied search for jeggings that it briefly ranked in the top ten searches on Yahoo.

How many kinds of wrong is that? At first, I hoped that maybe it was as part of a bigger search term, like “Jeggings are hideous,” or “Jeggings are not pants.” But no. Thanks to my boyfriend’s in-depth investigative reporting (and the Yahoo homepage’s story carousel, I can confirm that jeggings were a trending topic because …. well, I’ll let Yahoo’s style reporter tell you.

I briefly considered using the “Report Abuse” link, but decided against it. After all, it’s not the reporter’s fault. We’ve all had to do things we don’t agree with for a job (like when I would do my boss’s expense report, and she’d include take-out receipts). So, I sympathize with the challenge she must have faced in writing this article.

In fact, part of me wonders if maybe she’s not part of the anti-jeggings movement as well. A cursory read of the article might give off the impression of your standard trend piece. But if you look a little closer – well, let me just take an excerpt for you:

With the look of denim and the feel of Spandex …

See? No one ever uses “the feel of Spandex” to describe something positive. You never hear “Man, those Spandex tights are so comfortable!” or “I love the way that Spandex constricts my bloodflow.”

The author even includes a cautionary picture of the risks of jeggings:

Did you know that Whitney Port graduated summa cum laude from Yale at the age of 16? No, of course not. Because then she started wearing jeggings regularly. And now?

Look at that vacant stare – those dead eyes, now devoid of the spark – of the promise – that they once held. Poor blood flow has left her an empty husk. The only way she can support herself is by starring on an MTV reality show where everyone around her gets better story lines.

Not convinced yet that the author secretly hates jeggings? How about this passage

“[...]this garment [...] we thought [...] couldn’t get any tighter [...] we were proven wrong.”

Listen to that; a carefully crafted warning about the discomfort of jeggings. What are the tightest pants you can think of? Well, if the author is to be believed – and she is, because she writes for the internet – imagine that those super tight pants are even tighter – that’s jeggings. How miserable! How horrible! Imagine the discomfort! Woe be to she that wears such a garment!

And, for the record, those ellipses are only in place of absolutely non-essential words and phrases.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of all is her choice of jeggings. Jeggings aren’t a good thing, but much like with burns, there are degrees. For example, these American Eagle jeggings are like when you accidentally touch a hot cookie sheet. It hurts, you feel stupid, but if you run it under some cold water, it’ll go away.

These, on the other hand, are more along the lines of, “Oven mitts are for wusses, I can take this cookie sheet out of the oven bare-handed – well, damn, now I need a skin graft.”

Oh yeah. Acid-washed jeggings. Soak it up. Revel in it. Per the advice of the author, wear it with a cropped stripe top. That is apparently “edgy.” While “edgy” normally means something very hip, with punk undertones, I think the author is trying to convey an entirely different sentiment. Why say “edgy” when she could have said hip or punk? Because she’s trying to warn us to edge away from the jegging trend.

Believe me, the signs are all there: this is an anti-jegging article, thinly veiled as pro-jegging propaganda. I can only hope that all those who made “jeggings” a trending topic picked up on these subtleties.

Spread the word, my friends. Pass this amongst your anti-jegging allies, so that they too can know that they are not alone – that, even when forced to declare her allegiance to the Forces of Jegging, one Yahoo trend piece writer found a way to spread the word and warn of the jegging threat.

You, Sarah Bernard, trend-piece writer, have done this world a service. Thank you for all you have done, and all you have yet to do.

Roxy City Slick Jeggings – $49.50

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