How a pair of trousers became a verified rock-myth (by committee)

If you want a study in how ordinary school discipline turns into rock legend, Reddit just produced the peer-reviewed edition: “Hopefully this is allowed…it’s not my malicious compliance but I can validate with my former classmates,” writes someone who went to the same school as Robert Smith. That sentence is internet archeology—barely an assertion, immediately stacked with credentialing and the smell of nostalgia.

The comments did what comments do: corroboration by proximity. “Certainly believable,” one user supplies like a stamp. Another adds the classic family-connection boost: dad went to school with him and the reply is a reverent “wooow.” (Bonus data point: people also remember the two Tom Greens in yearbook photos—same grade, different magnitude of late-night television.)

Inventory, for the sake of scientific rigor: 1) a yearbook photo, 2) a story about trousers/dress-code-misbehavior, 3) a chain of casual witnesses who don’t want subpoenas, just affirmation. Prankerjoker’s note—“I guess he Cured the teacher of complaining about his trousers”—is proof that puns age better than evidence.

Conclusion/diagnosis: the postmortem shows a simple truth—adolescence plus aesthetic choices plus time equals folklore. You don’t need a signed affidavit to canonize a moment; you need a classmate, a dad with a memory, and a Reddit thread willing to say, “Certainly believable.” That’s how legends form: peer review by people who owned those same crappy lockers.