Employees at Hooters are resentful about new TikTok shorts. TikTok
Employees at Hooters are using TikTok as a way to protest new revealing shorts.
These shorts were first introduced in Texas at a select location and then expanded to other states.
These shorts are just one of many controversies facing the restaurant chain.
Hooters employees have taken to social media to protest a new uniform that they feel is too visible.
Staffers joined TikTok to create a series on viral videos about shorts that are so thin they can be described as "like underwear". The videos feature employees voicing their dissatisfaction with the short uniforms and comparing them to their older shorts which are much longer.
"Soooo Hooters got new pants. One TikTok user wrote, "I mean shorts." Another user wrote, "I love my job, but I don't like wearing undies to work."
This restaurant chain is well-known for its "craveable food, wings, cold beer and sports" and, as it states on its website, its sexualization of women. Critics have criticized the chain for requiring employees to wear certain hairstyles and makeup standards, as well as their wearing revealing uniforms.
Brittanny Anderson, a chef and owner at Metzger Bar and Butchery and a former Hooters Girl told GQ that "it is an entire job based upon sexual harassment." "You're paid to be sexually harassed or objectified. Hooters knows this.
The company was founded in Clearwater, Florida in 1983. It has been the subject to numerous lawsuits throughout the years. After being told that her 132-pound body was not in line with the brand's requirements, a Michigan employee filed a lawsuit against the company.
Hooters resisted the suit and told Reuters that it was absurd and didn't require weight restrictions.
A 2013 racial discrimination suit awarded $250,000 to a staffer after she was told that "Hooters prohibits African American Hooters Girls wearing blond highlights on their hair." According to the lawsuit, According to reports, the company claimed it does not have any different standards for different races.
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In 1997, the company settled a case in a class action for gender-based discrimination. This set precedent by using a legal loophole that allowed Hooters to continue exclusively to employ women.
Today, the company operates more than 420 locations in 42 states and 29 other countries as franchises that are owned and operated jointly by Hooters of America LLC. There are also 25 Hooters restaurants in the Original Hooters Group that are independently owned but share similar branding.
Insider asked for comment from Hooters, but a representative said that uniform changes were first introduced to selected locations in Texas, before being expanded to other Hooters of America, LLC stores.
Original Hooters Group restaurants haven't introduced shorter shorts to their restaurants, and employees still wear their regular uniforms.
"The Original Hooters Restaurants in Tampa Bay, Chicagoland and Manhattan... will not change their iconic uniform consisting of orange shorts, white uniform tops, that has made this brand universally known," a spokesperson for NBC News stated to NBC News via email.
The spokesperson also stated that the small shorts were made to be part of a collaboration with Hooters Girls in Texas, where uniforms have received "overwhelmingly positive reviews" from customers and Hooters Girls.
Employees have shared their support for TikTok's uniforms and expressed their excitement about the new shorts. One TikTok user said she has been making "way more" since wearing the new uniform, while another wrote that she was the only one who loves the shorts ???".
TikTok user @sick.abt.it posted a follow up post on Friday. She shared that the CEO of Hooters reached out to her after her original video went viral and told her that she could wear the same shorts.
She wrote the caption, "Couldn’t have done it without all you #hootersgirl."
Business Insider has the original article.
