Are Beards Really Over?
(photo: Mark Seliger)
In the fallout after its piece about the term yuccie (young urban creatives) replacing the onerous categorization of hipster, the good people at Mashable have declared that the beard is over. We would like to dissent.
And that’s not just because a handful of the guys who have covered our magazine recently have been photographed with beards in various stages, from Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s carefully maintained scruff last March to Joe Manganiello’s fuller beard on the current issue. That’s not the point. The point is that in most cases you have to be a grown man to even grow a beard in the first place, and grown men should be allowed to do whatever they want to their facial hair (the threat of deadly germs residing in it notwithstanding) without fear of reprisal at the hands of one or two online commenters.
Mashable’s piece centers on a formerly bearded male model named Joel Alexander who cut off his considerable facial hair because it was preventing him from getting jobs. And while we support Alexander in his effort to stack all the paper he can, his circumstance is fairly uncommon. A beard isn’t going to stop you from from working as a CPA or keep you from getting into law school. It’s certainly not going to stop you from landing a gig as a software architect or a product manager or really any of the jobs that Glassdoor says are most in demand in 2015.
So we don’t want to hear more of this talk about beards being “over” just yet. They certainly had a moment, and perhaps fewer men are sporting them now for various aesthetic reasons. But just because a look starts to wane after being hyperpopular doesn’t mean it necessarily goes away (hello, skinny jeans). If you see a man with a beard anytime soon, then beards aren’t over.
By Justin Fenner
More from DETAILS:
The Best Grooming Products of 2015
The 25 Best Beards on Instagram
Top 7 Colognes Women Want You to Wear in 2015
9 Barbers You Should be Following On Instagram
The Best Men’s Hairstyles And Cuts
