Okay, so I'm an old, old man. I am reminded of this on an almost daily basis, since I've chosen to live in a neighborhood with a relatively high percentage of young, tattooed, artist hipsters.
Now, don't get me wrong; I love living and working among the young artsty types. They make the neighborhood interesting and cool, and they allow me to live the way I like to live--as one of the dorkiest people among cool people. (I get really uncomfortable when I'm the coolest person in the room--that indicates a near-lethal level of dorkification.)
So, yeah, the youngsters are cool, they make interesting art, they make this a fun place to live.
But.
There's this new trend among the twentysomething, skinny-jeaned, thrift-store clad guys: the freakin' Grizzly Adams beard. For the life of me, I can't understand why a young, otherwise good-looking man wants to look like an Old Testament prophet.
And, even more shockingly, these guys almost always have attractive young women with them. Here's a photo I found on Creative Commons that illustrates this trend:
So, not only are the young men of today choosing the "crazy ol' hermit who lives in a shack" look, apparently the young women of today crave nothing more than a man with lots of hair growing out of his neck.
Is this the fault of music artists like Band of Horses or Iron & Wine?
Or are these guys just part of the trend? I don't know, but I'd like to perform a service for these young people I'm fond of. So consider this a little time capsule for those of you who are twentysomething hipsters circa 2008. In ten, fifteen, twenty years, you will look at pictures of yourself sporting a bushy neck beard, or perhaps on the arm of your neck-bearded beau, and you'll say, "Oh My God! Did we really look that ridiculous, or did people actually think that was a cool look?" You really looked that ridiculous. It wasn't a cool look. I'm sorry.
