Conservative Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson on Sunday suggested that the reason he had been unpopular with liberals for years was because "people despise you when you wear a bow tie."
"How boring is it to wear a hoodie to work?" Carlson asked during a Fox News segment about how Americans were revolting against the tradition of dressing casually on Fridays. "If you are truly cutting edge you will wear gloves. White gloves."
One viewer in London noted that "bow tie Thursdays" were becoming popular at his workplace.
Carlson, who wore a bow tie for years while working as a host of CNN's Crossfire, noted that he could have been "pummeled" for wearing the formal necktie if he had not believed in self defense.
"People despise you when you wear a bow tie," he explained. "Not in Charleston, not in Newport, Rhode Island. There little strongholds of bow tie-philia. But the rest on the country -- especially the Big Apple -- not for the bow ties."
"I mean, if you're a Nation of Islam guy -- in fact, they would come up to me often. They were so nice to me, it was unbelievable. The Nation of the [Louis] Farrakhan guys, they loved the bow tie."
"Was your behavior better when you were wearing a bow tie?" Fox News co-host Alisyn Camerota wondered.
"Oh, no," Carlson admitted. "It was much filthier because, look, you're wearing a bow tie so nobody suspects it."