I have four hooded sweatshirts in my closet. That’s probably not an unusual number, because the hoodie is a popular shirt style. It also seems like a very practical garment, designed to keep people warm and cozy. It’s like an indoor/outdoor jackety blanket for people who don’t want to feel weird about wearing a jacket inside or a blanket outside.

Though I sometimes wear hoodies and appreciate the idea behind the design, I don’t actually like them. The reason is that there are really only two things that differentiate a hoodie from a sweatshirt — the hood and the kangaroo pocket. And both of those things are stupid.

Yet, somehow, hoodies are far more popular than regular sweatshirts. The reason, I think, is because most people believe they sincerely like the hood and the jumbo single-pocket abdominal pad. But really, they don’t. They just can’t.

Surely hoodie lovers have been waiting for decades for someone to come along and explain how stupid they are. Well, here I am. Society is now just a few paragraphs away from the end of the hoodie, because everyone is going to agree with me, change their ways immediately, and heap praise upon me for freeing them from their misguided perceptions of fashion and comfort.

Let’s start with the pocket. Get real: no one trusts it. I dare you to put your smartphone, wallet, keys or anything that matters to you at all in that pocket. No, I didn’t think so. That pocket is bullshit. You can put your hands in there for some warmth, or maybe keep a few facial tissues or something you shoplifted, but I wouldn’t even trust putting half a candy bar in that gaping pouch. And is it really helpful that it can provide a little protection for your hands from the cold? Because your pants probably have warmer pockets that will also hold valuables. And there is an invention called gloves, by the way.

Even less useful than the pouch is the hood, which manages to completely fail at keeping anyone’s head warm while also severely limiting peripheral vision. Have you ever tried to cross the street with a hood on? If you have, you are probably not alive to answer this question.

Because I’m a slow learner, like most people, I had to go through this internal dialogue with myself a hundred times or so before I eventually gave up on the hood:

“Hey, it’s a little chilly out. I should put up my hood. There, now the top of my head is seven percent warmer while my ears remain at the same temperature. As long as I keep my back to the wind, which keeps my hood from blowing down every fourteen seconds, I can be warmer to an extent that is barely noticeable while also being half blind. Good thing I’m not wearing one of those perfectly functional winter hats that were invented generations before the useless hoodie.”

OK, OK, I’ll admit there are some benefits to the hood. Like when snow builds up inside them and later gets dumped down your back. That’s excellent.

It’s also really fun when a bully grabs the drawstring and cinches your hood tight so you are looking out a one-inch hole, then pulls you around in your near-blindness until you either fall over or allow the hoodie to be yanked off over your head.

It’s also nice when you get warm and pull your hoodie off, causing it to cling to your T-shirt and expose the belly you might have wanted to keep concealed from the general public.

Do you like how some hoodies are more suffocating than a turtleneck?

Do you enjoy how, when it’s extra cold out and you put on a jacket the sleeves of the hoodie underneath slide up and the hood bunches into a wad inside the jacket, requiring all sorts of pinching and yanking to sort things out?

Of course you don’t. Hoodies are stupid and we are all ready to admit it now.

I mean, except for how, as the hair on the back of my head thins out in middle age, a lightweight hoodie is the perfect weapon against mosquito bites. So nevermind, hoodie. I take back all of those terrible things I said about you.