How the Borat Thong Helped Turn Men’s Thongs Into a Joke
For a lot of people, one image immediately appears when they hear the words “men’s thong.” Not practical athletic support or comfortable designs.
Just Borat in a fluorescent green mankini.
And honestly, that single cultural image has probably done more to shape public opinion about men’s thongs than almost anything else.
The problem is that the Borat mankini and actual everyday men’s thongs have almost nothing in common beyond sitting between the cheeks.
But once an image becomes culturally dominant, nuance disappears.
The Mankini Was Designed to Look Ridiculous
The Borat mankini was specifically designed as visual comedy. Every element exaggerated discomfort and absurdity. The bright neon green colour, extreme high-cut shape stretched over the shoulder, the awkward tension that made every viewer cringe at the thought of the wedgie. The joke depended entirely on the outfit looking socially unacceptable.
And because millions of people saw that image before ever seeing normal men’s thong underwear, the brain connected the two permanently.
The Problem: People Think That’s What Men’s Thongs Are
For many people, “men’s thong” immediately translates to a comedy costume or party gag that is designed for humiliation, something worn ironically.
Not because they’ve tried one. Not because they’ve researched them. But because the dominant cultural reference point trained them to react that way.
It stops people mentally categorising thongs as underwear, and instead places them into performance, comedy, or shock value.
Everyday Men’s Thongs Are Actually Incredibly Boring
Which is ironic. Most real men’s thongs are visually and functionally far more similar to briefs or jockstraps than they are to a mankini.
Most are designed around support, comfort, and minimal visibility, none of which is inherently comedic.
But once the Borat image became culturally dominant, the category inherited the joke.
Comedy Has a Strange Power Over Clothing
Once something becomes a comedy symbol it becomes difficult for people to mentally separate the joke version from the real version.
The mankini accidentally turned an entire category of men’s underwear into shorthand for ridiculous male overconfidence, even though most actual thong wearers are just sitting at work, going to the gym, or forgetting what underwear they even put on that morning.
The Joke Relies on Visibility
The Borat joke only works because the outfit is aggressively public. But actual men’s thong wear is almost entirely private. Most thong wearers are not posing publicly, showing them off and trying to attract attention.
They are just trying to reduce the bunching and improve the comfort of their underwear.
The comedy image and the real-world usage barely overlap.
The Mankini Also Reinforced the “Sexual” Assumption
Because the outfit was intentionally provocative and exaggerated, it also strengthened another stereotype: that all men’s thong-style underwear must be inherently sexual.
Again, that perception survives mostly because many people have never actually encountered normal men’s thong designs in everyday life.
If the first exposure someone has is comedy films or novelty stag-do costumes, then of course they assume the category exists purely for attention.
Meanwhile, plain looking everyday thongs are being bought for entirely ordinary reasons.
The Damage Wasn’t Intentional, But It Was Real
None of this means the Borat mankini “shouldn’t exist.” The joke clearly worked. But culturally, it probably delayed mainstream normalisation of men’s thongs by years because it made the category difficult to separate from irony.
Even now, many men hesitate to try thongs not because they think they’ll feel uncomfortable, but because they worry about being associated with the joke itself.
That’s an incredibly powerful effect for a comedy costume to have had.
Most Thong Wearers End Up Thinking About Comfort, Not Image
One of the funniest outcomes is that people who actually try men’s thongs often stop thinking about appearance surprisingly quickly. The comfort and support provided by the style is far more of an appeal than wearing something sexy or showy.
The Borat mankini succeeded so well as comedy that it accidentally became many people’s only reference point for men’s thongs. And because of that, an entire category of practical underwear inherited a reputation built around parody rather than reality.
But once you remove the comedy image, men’s thongs become surprisingly ordinary.
Which may be the exact opposite of what the mankini was ever designed to achieve.
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