Look, you've probably worn jeans before. And if you're some weirdo who hasn't, you've definitely at least SEEN jeans before.

What I'm trying to say is jeans are pretty freakin' common. Me? I think I've worn at least one pair of jeans a week for the last 10 years of my life.

And yet I have never once questioned this one little thing that all jeans have in common.

You know those tiny little buttons on your jean pockets that have nothing to do with anything?

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I had just accepted those seemingly useless buttons as simply a part of jean fashion. That was like, their thing or whatever. That's just how jeans are!

But as it turns out, these little guys have an ACTUAL PURPOSE. Apparently those buttons are called rivets, and they're there to prevent jeans from wearing out and ripping at the seam.

Oooohhhhh, OK, well that makes a lot of sense.

Even more interesting, those copper rivets are actually patented by Levi. Young Levi Strauss came up with the idea for the rivets in 1829 when he noticed miners were complaining about how quickly their pants wore out.

Man, who knew those tiny buttons had such a historically rich background?

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Well, you learn something new every day. Shout out to Levi Strauss for making my jeans so long-lasting, even if I'm not going to be hitting the mines any time soon.

Citations: Why do jeans have those tiny buttons on the side of the pockets? (Yahoo! Answers)