No Pants Day in The Trouser World

No Pants Day is a participatory holiday that happens on the first Friday in June. The holiday is based on the premise of having people spend their day not wearing any Pant (Trouser). Participants are challenged to act as if there is nothing strange about not wearing pants in public. The liberation of breaking a social taboo and seeing the reaction of people not aware of the event generally makes the event fun for its participants.

The Knighthood of BUH at the University of Texas at Austin are advocates of the holiday. Austin has celebrated the day since 1997 according to a 1999 flyer. The holiday gets media attention every year, and as a result events celebrating No Pants Day have popped up in cities across the globe. Promoters state that the holiday is about not taking oneself seriously. The holiday is an example of surreal humor, which relies on an absurd situation (in this case, crowds of people walking around wearing no pants).

The No Pants Subway Ride, an annual event organized by New York City prank collective Improv Everywhere is often erroneously referred to as "No Pants Day." In this event, members of the group enter a subway car at consecutive stops without pants in the middle of winter. Participants pretend that they do not know each other and if asked, claim that they simply "forgot" their pants. The first No Pants Subway Ride took place in 2002 with seven riders and has grown since then. The event has grown considerably over the years. In 2012 nearly 4,000 people participated in New York and tens of thousands more participated in 59 other cities around the world. The fact that the No Pants Subway Ride has become a global event with multiple cities participating on the same day has led to its confusion with No Pants Day. The No Pants Subway Ride is celebrated in early January, with Improv Everywhere usually announcing the exact date a month ahead of time.

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