By Peter Lawrence Kane
It’s suddenly possible to see past the beard, because the beard is everywhere. It’s found its way onto the chin of just about every cultural context out there: Hollywood A-listers, Orthodox rabbis, organic farmers, Goldman Sachs CEOs, faux-lumberjacks, actual lumberjacks, television duck hunters, daddy bears, al-Qaeda jihadis, baseball players, and Matt Lauer. Once a rare, religious adornment that also had an extreme anti-establishment vibe, a beard can now be anything you want it to be.
But the beard’s days are numbered, at least in terms of any badass quotient. The field is too crowded. And facial hair isn’t the only area where the dominant species might disappear, either. IPAs felt like the endpoint of beer once it rediscovered its ancient roots, and now sour ales are all the rage. Skinny jeans have dominated for years, but high-waisted pants might take over. (Possibly.)
Maybe this was inevitable. Few men grow their facial hair out with any overt symbolism in mind, but since it’s such a splendid way to add pizzazz to your face, a beard broadcasts your cultural affiliation whether you like it or not. (This can be subtle, as most people can read how Chuck Norris wears a different kind of beard than Justin Vernon from Bon Iver.) At its root, a beard is an affectation, even when it tries to be genuine — the Duck Dynasty guys might project rustic manliness, but they’re really just actors, playing out an exaggerated backwoods stereotype for reality TV.
And beards could eventually become totally uncool, just as tattoos are arguably passé. It doesn’t seem likely to happen soon, though, since razor sales are still slumping. But when the phrase “mainstreaming of the three-day stubble ‘hipster’ look” comes out of the mouth of Proctor & Gamble’s CFO, it might be time. Another sign that the trend is over is when the New York Times weighs in with a forehead-slapper — in the fashion section — that basically gives the last word to a guy who thinks having beard makes you look like a hobo. Still, beards can be read as a reaction to a basic crisis of masculinity, where American men feel shat upon by the long recession and bored by office jobs, which pushes them toward rough boys’ stuff like the Paleo Diet, Tough Mudder, and grizzled muzzles.
In Gay World, beards are even more complicated. Every guy I’ve dated in the last ten years has been beardy, and my boyfriend and I have never seen each other clean-shaven. Many men who love men think beards are practically necessary; many would vehemently disagree. And some ethnicities are better predisposed to facial hair than others. Factor in pressures to butch it up and a desire to avoid assimilation and you could write a Ph.D. dissertation. However fluctuating and fashion-forward gay male styles may be, the lines drawn around beards and who’s got one remain pretty fixed. (The long, bushy-yet-manicured beard is more recent, though. And sexy.)
What seems likely is that the mainstream fascination with beards will eventually play out, and the subcultures that have embraced it all along will keep doing so — or at least continue evolving out of phase with the rest. Until the apocalypse, that is, when every guy will have one. The end of civilization is going to be seriously hot.
Photo via Thinkstock
