Writes the NYT fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, in "What’s With All the Beards? More and more men seem to be putting down the razor and letting their whiskers grow. Our critic examines the history of the trend and what it might mean."
Is there anything less masculine than the phrase "masculine oomph"? Looking for "masculine oomph"? You can't get there from here.
As for "the current discourse around masculinity and the manosphere," what is most current is the idea of emulating Charlie Kirk. He was quite clean-shaven, so you may want to rethink your effort to right-wing-ize beards.
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Not all beards are scruffy. And some people just look better with one.
Men with round faces need the facial hair to add lines.
Cherubic faces are not a testosterone marker.
How I long for the day when cultural critics and pop semiologists won't write nothin' at all, but just stand back and let it all be ...
The more cherubic your face is the longer your beard needs to be.
Angular chins and facial hair are both testosterone markers. Either are attractive to women.
Fashion critics - lol. Vapid.
In the ancient world, a soldier - whether Greek, Persian, Assyrian, or Hittite - was not considered prepared for battle unless his beard was properly coiffed.
It is fitting since that's precisely what many believe is coming.
Slow news day NYT? Men grow beards naturally, particularly those who don't take gender transition hormones. Been watching too many movies with a "low T" DEI cast?
IMO it's an age thing. As I recall anything more than a mustache was highly unusual for men of my age and older back in the 1980s but somewhere around the mid-1990s beards started to become more and more common as Millennial men reached a certain age The number of men with beards has grown as the Millennials have become more visible.
The 'War on Not Noticing' misses the trend that men have been sporting beards in big numbers for about 10 years now. I guess they don't watch much baseball.
Personally I think a man that is close-shaved looks a lot better than some guy wearing a week's worth of beard that he trims every day, the perma-bum look, or a guy trying out a beard but ending up with bumfluff. A lot of men should quit trying, they just look like Che Guevara at best, a loser at worst.
We are seeing a breakdown of uniformity in appearance which widens personal preference and undermines social control. It also deflates the accuracy of assumptions based on one's own preferences.
Where have they been? Anyway, whatever.
I'm not fond of beards, especially the long ones. It's just a hassle and sometimes just gross. I do the stubble thing for convenience, although I think I also look better with it until it gets long enough to show that it's all gray. The convenience is that I only have to cut it back short once a week, so I age about 10 years every week and then I start over young again on date night.
All those "a new way to manscape" commercials I saw during football this weekend (key exchange: "what is that?" "it's a face") were asserting that FACES are the new thing to shave and share pics of.
"beards are once again mainstream, which suggests their meaning is changing once again."
I've had a beard for 45 years. I didn't realize there was "meaning" attached to it.
The drummer for ZZ Top was named Beard.
Buttigieg has a beard now too.
When it comes to normal Americans the NYT is always on the trailing edge of fashion. At least they have their finger on the pulse of the 1% of the 1%.
This has been a trend for at least 15 years. Utter non-story.
Buttigieg has a beard now too.
The other kind might have helped his career more.
Lumbersexuals are so ten years ago.
One of the many things I can't connect with regarding the attractiveness men, is how women could tolerate long beards.
"The drummer for ZZ Top was named Beard."
And was the only beardless one in the band.
Looks like the theory that beards flourish when a woman occupies the throne of England isn't holding up too well. Drat. I liked that one.
Indolent, trust-funded hipsters living in, of all places, Brooklyn, launched the full-face beard craze over 20 years ago, paired with Pendleton shirts and Herman Survivor boots. The hook was this -- look like a lumberjack, talk like a window dresser. It was part of the adolescent irony movement that failed to apply the brakes as it skidded past 18 and t-boned 31 with fatalities.
I don't get it. Growing a beard isn't an accomplishment, so why the vanity products? Lotions, vitamin supplements, something called beard butter. There even an expensive electric thingamajig that maintains a five-day stubble for much sought-after rive gauche opium-eater look -- too oppressed by the bourgeoisie to live, too hungover to care.
My wife and late mother like my well-trimmed beard, but beards are hot and I mostly have the facial hair I have because I hate shaving. (In truth my full beard is kind of sparse, unlike my scalp hair.)
Just this morning, as I do every few days, I trimmed everything but my horseshoe 'stache and soul patch with my electric razor. Shaving I only do every few weeks.
My chin dimple is one of my best features (along with my legs of course, but I hardly ever shave them) so I don't let it disappear for long.
We still have a ways to go before we get back to the crazy facial hair days of the Civil War era. Everything was on the table, or the face, then. Men are often constrained in their sartorial freedom much more than women so facial hair brings self expression.
The scarier thing is that mustaches are making a strong comeback among college aged men.
My theory is the beard craze arose out of the afghan invasion, when the news was filled with masculine socom operators riding horseback.
Tom T. said...
Buttigieg has a beard now too.
He needs it.
"Just this morning, as I do every few days, I trimmed everything but my horseshoe 'stache and soul patch with my electric razor."
Gone for that Johnny Ringo look, eh, Narr?
Play for blood? Say when.
"Achilles said...
Men with round faces need the facial hair to add lines.
Cherubic faces are not a testosterone marker."
Yeah I think the increased prevalence of beards is linked to obesity rates. A fat man that has a fat face can add some masculine oomph, or at least hnnngh, by having a beard. A beard can also cover up a weaker jawline, which could be linked to dropping Testosterone in men over the last few generations.
Without my 'stache, which I have worn since I was 17, I look a little too much like Jim Nabors, and nobody needs that.
Q for Q: Who is Johnny Ringo, and what are we going to play?
I am one of those guys who look better with a beard.
I first grew one in the early 70's and had to shave the beard several times for various jobs. Frankly, I hate shaving and have kept this (very gray) version for the past 15 years.
Dreams of our Hominids, empathetic evolution, or dudes with lazytudes.
@Narr, the 'stache is back in a big way in the services. It's like an 80s porno up in the USMC right now.
NYT AWFL writes about beards and masculinity. Goodie. In the normie world the number one reason to have a beard: I don’t have to shave every morning. Number two reason (Vance, Cruz, for example): I look a hell of a lot better with a beard. The reasons are likely different for lefty girly men like Buttigieg.
"It's like an 80s porno up in the USMC right now."
Does that make me ahead of my time, or behind?
I think everyone spending a year or more in COVisolation may have led to the resurgence. Why shave if you're not going into the office?
What scares me is hairy pits and legs on women becoming fashionable.
I grew out my mustache a month ago after my daughter gave me a pair of aviator sunglasses. If you're going to rock classic 70's style, you have to go full retard. It's a very popular look amongst females of all ages. I get compared to Magnum PI and Sam Elliott. In my experience, being masculine with a decent man card is highly revered in modern society. Quit playing the victim and act like a man..
“Buttigieg has a beard now too.”
Buttigieg is what’s known as a “bearded clam”.
“I get compared to Magnum PI and Sam Elliott.”
Howard leaves out the part of him coming up short, lol
Just be a man, Howard. Stop playing “dress-up”.
No man grows a beard by accident. It is always a statement.
You know who reminds me of Magnum PI?
Our very own Bagoh.
Not only are young zoomer men rocking the mustache now, but many of them perm their hair as well, referred to as the Broccoli haircut, because it is frequently closely cropped or shaved on the sides, giving the head a look like a Broccoli floret . Some even perm their hair and then sport a mullet.
"No man grows a beard by accident. It is always a statement."
Dopey.
My statement is I hate shaving. Fortunately, it I look good with it. Are those "statements"?
Anthropogenic Intelligence (AI) tells us it is none of the above, all of the above. JournoLists need to find a new hobby.
All the dudes I see with the huge beards that have been growing for months/years are uniformly white, overweight and look unable to punch their way out of a paper bag. My opinion is the beard is supposed to project the masculinity that would be damn near impossible to spot without one. The bigger the beard, the more faux masculinity required.
YouTube: In this case the beard was apparently covering up some imperfection, until he shaved it off.
I grew a beard during the Summer before my last year in high school. I kept it for close to 12 years mostly because I hated shaving every day. I finally got rid of it before my first job interviews when I was a post-doctoral fellow. I never grew it out again and eventually realized that I like being clean shaven more.
So, I think we can assume Matt has a full beard, right, everyone?
For Narr: Johnny Ringo
old and slow, sample size of 1 but I started my beard growing when I skipped shaving for a couple of days around the birth of my son. I guess you could say *not* shaving it off is not accidental, however.
Iman you mouse
Harry Reams
None of the occupations I had allowed a beard.
After I retired, my wife told me she wanted to see what I look like with one.
I disagree with Hombre. Reason number one to grow a beard is because your wife tells you to.
Reason number one to keep the beard: she likes it.
Reason number two: I've been told I look like Sean Connery.
Ted Cruz has sported a beard since 2016, if I am not mistaken.
I first grew a beard in 1985. I shaved it off for a new job. I grew it back in 1990 or so and have had it ever since.
I am very, very manly and way ahead of the curve ;^) (also my wife likes the way I look with a beard).
I didn't specify what I thought the statement might be in anyone's case, just that it did not happen by accident and it is a statement.
I’ve never grown a beard. Never cared for one. Like anything, a good one requires good maintenance. You have to have the time for it, or it really will say something about you. I don’t think that thing is ideological, most of the time.
You can act like a man, Howard! Because a man who spends time worrying about how he looks best with his facial hair can never be a real man. What's the matter with you? Is this what you've become… a Hollywood finocchio who gazed at a mirror like a woman? "Oh, what do I do? How should I trim this, how best to style that?" What is that nonsense? Ridiculous!
“ I've been told I look like Sean Connery.”
What?… shriveled and dead?
Thanks Yancey. I see that's where 'play for blood' comes from too.
I missed that one.
Beards are the same as haircuts. If it feels too scruffy at the computer, I shave it off at the computer. If I find hair that seems too long, I cut it off with barbers' scissors at the computer. Which is where those two implements are kept.
Waste basket at hand.
I cannot and will not abide the shaved head/full beard look. The sideburns just...end. It's the skull equivalent of really, really, horribly bad, fiction writing.
All the dudes I see with the huge beards that have been growing for months/years are uniformly white, overweight and look unable to punch their way out of a paper bag. My opinion is the beard is supposed to project the masculinity that would be damn near impossible to spot without one. The bigger the beard, the more faux masculinity required.
Joe Thornton would like a word with you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Thornton
There was a guy in law school of Indian heritage who had a full bushy black beard when he arrived. He looked like a Sikh warrior.
When he shaved it off (presumably for interviews) he was visibly diminished. He had no chin.
Please don’t attempt to tell me that women can’t have beards.
Most of the men I personally know who have beards are the Ren Faire types.
I see a lot of old dudes with big beards. Screams: Retired - and off the market. Me, I still need to shave for work, at least once week. Plus wife doesn't like facial hair.
Grew a beard when I was like 22 (in 1984/5) last couple years of college. Looked awful (I have curly hair so it was just scruffy) although I didn't let it get very long, and at the time that was kind of the point (hiding). Shaved it off Christmas Eve 1989; stared at my now-hairless face in the mirror for like 10 full minutes.
Nowadays I shave twice a week so have a bit of the scruffy look most of the time.
Iman: “I've been told I look like Sean Connery.”
What?… shriveled and dead?
Ouch.
I've been told I'm not pleasant to look at without it.
Howard @ 11:07
From now on your nickname is " Goose".
What it means is that swords are soon to follow.
I grew facial hair for a charity fundraiser, breast cancer I think. A lot of men were doing it in Kansas City for that reason. Many kept it, but groomed the beards after the event. I shaved off the beard, but kept the handlebar on a lark. I've always been told I look like Kurt Russell, but never believed it till I was asked for autographs in airports.
I started shaving when I was 12. The last time I shaved completely was when I got out of the Air Force in 1992. Shaving sucks. At least now, my beard and mustache is a uniform gray.
Wow some people really hate beards and people who have them.
What’s going on there?
I remember, growing up in the 60s and 70s, that facial hair was rare. Now, beards are everywhere, and it still freaks me out a bit.
As far as 'staches go, Robin Olds brought them back to the fighter pilot community in 1967.
Achilles said...
"Wow some people really hate beards and people who have them.
What’s going on there?"
It's us old folks. Back in the day, only Dirty Filthy Hippies had beards. Are you a Dirty, Filthy Hippie?
LOL
I have never understood the fashion of shaving, for men or for women. We have hair for a reason, we evolved that way, why try to deny it? The only rational reason, so far as I can tell, is to pretend that one is not aging, to pretend forever to be pre-pubescent. Don't mind if I don't.
Grooming is important. Neck beards always look terrible. A beard with no definition, the kind that just thins out to nothing around the cheekbones, doesn't look good.
The hipster beards that have been around for 10 or 15 years, and unnoticed by the NYT Style department, take quite a bit of effort to look that good.
I stopped shaving for 6 months, and no one noticed. Not even Mrs. Bar.
That was a hanging curveball, hey Skipper, lol! 😝
I had a beard from the start of my senior year of HS, until I graduated from law school (but shaved for a summer clerkship after my 2L year). In the last week, after 39 years of being clean shaven, I started growing a beard. Reason had nothing to do with the motives or influences discussed in article. I'm just tired of shaving, and it's getting cooler. Plus, during the summer my wife made a remark after 3 days of not shaving that the gray could look good. We'll see. But I won't miss the shaving.
The explanation is simple, you can get the tools to maintain a nice looking beard cheap now, and this was not always true. It was hard or expensive to not look scruffy.
Facial Hair Renaissance . . . didn't they open for T-Rex in '77?
vanessa friedman has the stupidest take on everything,
Beards have been "back" for at least 7 or 8 years.
Ok, I admit that I get a beard trim every ten days or so at one of the discount hair cutteries, and I get a lot more flirting since I worked out the parameters of what looks good and how to ask for it. Every few days I shave around it. I also get my hair trimmed slightly. I am certainly no dreamboat, but women never used to notice me at all that I could tell. My golf buddy grew one and I thought he was nuts because he has a great jawline, which trumps a beard every time.
As to what guys here think of me, I would have a hard time caring less. I am just offering advice for guys it might help.
Did she just emerge from her Covid bunker?
Narr asks, "...and what are we going to play?"
A from Q: Canasta at thirty paces.
Funny comment...a friend was recently looking into buying a pickup truck, and went to a show. Not the person's normal crowd, mentioned lots of flannel and beards. I asked if it was a truck show or a Millenial hipster hangout.
The Amish are trend leaders where urbane culture follows.
The bearded Mathew Goode became my TV boyfriend during A Discovery of Witches. Then I watched the entire awful, to me, Downton Abbey just to discover he had no chin. Ugg! But then, I'm shallow that way. Are soul patches popular outside the south?
~Looks up Mathew Goode~
Yup, That’s exactly the reason I have a beard.
I grew my first beard after winning a role with a professional theatre company, which also began my relationship with Actors' Equity after I got the role of Ross and Young Siward in Macbeth. The director said, Study the roles and no more shaving or haircuts. We'll style you later.
Things got mighty itchy until I got styled. A cut-throat razor in the deft hand of the stylist gave me one of those thin beards that trace the jaw line and end in a point below the chin, essentially, a Number 2. We were about a week in when the producer decided to enhance the earnings by doubling my parts with the guy playing one of the physicians who was already doubling with the wounded soldier in Act 1, quadruppling him and leaving me unemployed. But I got paid scale thanks to Equity
Currently, the Actors' Equity president is Brooke Shields, which is probably significant of either terminal decline or the fix. Think I ought to let my card expire?
I feel that Google preamble AI search isn't giving me enough credit here.
The lines "wrapt in 20000 towels, the only proof that Caroline had bowels" are a misremembered version of a famous epigram written by the poet Alexander Pope in 1737
. The original line, intended as a jab at Queen Caroline of Ansbach, was: "Here lies, wrapt up in forty thousand towels; the only proof that Caroline had bowels".
No man grows a beard by accident.
Well, one time my husband forgot his razor on a trip to Portugal, and I prevailed on him to let his beard grow for that ten days or so rather than buying a razor because I've always loved a beard on him. And he, being a man of considerable frugality, went along.
So, maybe not 100% by accident - it was more my doing - but the initial condition was accidental.
Ten, maybe 20 years ago I grew a beard. Couldn't stand all the itching. Not going back.
Beards became popular with Lumbersexuals back around 15-years ago
The newer thing is thin, shitty moustaches.
If you want to separate yourself from the generation before you, beards are vastly preferrable to tattoos.
At last we agree, Howard. See my 9/15/25, 10:09 AM comment.
Joe Bar said...
Achilles said...
"Wow some people really hate beards and people who have them.
What’s going on there?"
It's us old folks. Back in the day, only Dirty Filthy Hippies had beards. Are you a Dirty, Filthy Hippie?
LOL
I don't really see any patterns in people that have beards myself. Seems like a lot of people grow them for a variety of reasons.
I use a set of shears every 3 or 4 days. If there is a picture day or some occasion I shave my neck and cheeks clean. Sometimes I get really busy and I don't get around to it for a week or two.
I decided a long time ago I looked better with stubble. That is also the only place I grow grey hair.
When I used to be clean shaven I would get carded. That was a bad sign in my opinion.
Context and Analysis of Howard's Comment on Lumbersexuals and Beards
Howard’s comment refers to the cultural trend of “lumbersexuals,” a term describing a fashion and lifestyle movement that gained traction around 2010–2015, where men adopted a rugged, outdoorsy aesthetic—often including beards, flannel shirts, and work boots—while living urban, modern lives...
------
hm.
See also "Bumblesexuals" with their beards died black and yellow.
I'm a lumberjack and I'm O K
I guess I'm weird, but I have never liked the feeling of a beard. Clean shaven is the only way to go for me. And BTW, I would never ascribe a political aspect to a beard...except for the Commie Cubans!
Every once in a while, my wife has to cut one of my chest hairs that has grown too long.
I've had full beards, goatees, and even, for a while after retirement, a Franz Josef, but they all require too much maintenance.
Reminds me of when I needed to visit the local JP to pay a fine in the early 70s, I had long hair and a beard at the time. His only comment was that he hadn't seen hair like that in a long time :) What goes around, comes around.
I eventually got tired of brushing leaves and twigs out my hair and got it cut off. The barber, who had watched me walk by for years, said "I've been waiting for this." These days my only instruction to the barber is "short and off the ears."
If facial hair is masculine, going full Furry is ____
Yancey - Yes.
Peachy, that's what I'm told, and I take it as a great complement, but I don't see it much myself.
I watched a MLB game 10-15 years ago, and noticed half the team had beards, then they were all over, replacing van dykes and horrible stubble. I started mine when I had pre-cancerous patches frozen off my face in 2017. The sides hadn't filled in in my 20s or 30s, and I still have gaps forward of my ears.
Not only are young zoomer men rocking the mustache now, but many of them perm their hair as well
High testosterone can curl the hair.
@Jamie: "I prevailed on him to let his beard grow for that ten days or so rather than buying a razor"
A man who grows a beard comes to notice how feminine and different females faces are, and that younger men with smaller bare chins resemble females too. The beard is a primal indicator of a mature human male, and many men look better with one. Still, they do itch and quality beard grooming requires a lot more maintenance than shaving.
I've been told by dentists that guys with full scraggly beards routinely have terrible teeth.
I shave my face every week while having my bath, and I shave my head monthly. I'm not vain.
No beard here, but I have had a moustache since 1978. My wife absolutely forbids shaving it, and likes it nice and bushy, Tom Selleck style. Grew a beard one time, and both my wife and I hated it. But I reckon I will die with my 'stache, it has a life of it's own at this point.
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