The world is literally falling apart at the seams, and suddenly, beards are stupid, too? Dang.
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Recently, Mashable.com dropped some heavy fashion news on us. Beards are totally 2014, and we have to shave them off. When Mashable.com dropped this fashion Panzer tank on the inter webs, it was all we could do to not scream like Charlton Heston.
Take away our beards?
This is hard for us to hear. Our beards are our man curls. Our sexy scrub brushes for when the lights are off. They are our public pubic.
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Please. Have mercy.
This is hard for us to hear, Mashable. Our beards are our man curls. Our sexy scrub brushes for when the lights are off. They are our public pubic. They’re how we be mens, you see? Without our beards, we’re just a bunch of non-ironic people. Which means we are nothing. Nothing at all.
And what about our spiritual leaders; the baddest of the bad news bears? Duck Dynasty guy? ZZ Top? The claymation lumberjack from Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer? Guys like that?
Oh, and I have to note the even more deeply resonate man-irony here. Charlton Heston SHAVED on Planet of the Apes. Perhaps he needed to differentiate himself from gorillas and what not? Or maybe Heston was being ironic about irony? That with the decline of all that is civilized, its time to START shaving? God, it just gets so metaphorically complex.
And who did this? Who ended beards with one stroke of his pencil? Who struck us down in the glory of our Your-beard-is-dirty-as-a-toilet prime?
It was David Yi.
David joined the Mashable team as its first fashion hire. He’s written for the Wall Street Journal, Elle, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Details, Nylon, Refinery29, Fashionista, and covered the men’s market at Women’s Wear Daily. David has appeared on E!, Vh1, the Style network, and was a stylist at Capitol records.
So when David says cut it, you’d better cut it. You know?
If it had been some lady blogger with some backwater web site about collectable armchair doilies telling us to shave, we could have passed it off as a minor emotional challenge.
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And this is what really broke my heart.
If it had been some lady blogger with a web site about collectable armchair doilies telling us to shave, we could have passed it off as a minor emotional challenge, but David Yi? Who has written for Refinery29? Dang. That is some shave yesterday shite. You can’t just blow him off. You can’t.
No, really. Go ahead. Try. Read David’s gut wrenchingly potent assertions about shaving. Try as you may to fur up, you’re going to shave. I promise you. To put it in David’s words, “Sorry guys, beards are over.” “Sorry guys…” See? He feels for us, but like a loving father, he’s letting us know we’re all yuccies now.
David writes (and I read over and over and over…):
With the advent of the yuccie—that is, the Young Urban Creative—there’s been a slow demise of the hipster tribe, with millennials now flocking toward more sophisticated shores. They’ve now been adopted into the new “creative class,” and have opted for a cleaner, sleeker look. That means banishing their hoodies and flannels, becoming more streamlined in their life choices, and leaving behind that artifact of post-adolescence: rebellious facial hair.
More sophisticated shores, indeed.
But here is where David really slays our follicular aspirations. By showing us how one of our own has left the fold and moved on.
Just ask Joel Alexander, once one of the biggest purveyors of the bushy beard, who created a cult-like following on social media for his talent of growing facial hair. But recently, Alexander, 27, has chosen to shave his face completely.
“The big beard trend is over and done,” the fashion model and blogger says.
And then, Joel Alexander gets totally real on us. In one of his final Instagram posts prior to the big shave, Joel shares his life truth.
So, I just sit back and I take that in.
Maybe I need to wake up to reality? Maybe I do.
And as much as I’m sorry to see my beard go, I’m ready to bow my head and bid adeau to hipsterism. Because that’s how we roll in the big city. But I do want to say this: Some day beards will be back and David Yi will be singing their praises long and loud.
How do I know this? How, you ask?
Because you can only have beards or not have beards, and once you don’t have beards, they just may seem like something to have.
Yeah. Take that interwebs.
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Photos by kerryinlondon and Ed
I partially agree with you, but I guess growing facial hair only because you have a baby face is not the correct reason. Its the fact that it has been the most important and something noticeably different about the modern man. Being a beard keeper as well as a product analyst at http://www.beard-growth.com , I have seen many people disliking the beard as well as purchasing the products like beard creams, oils, sprays for grooming there facial hair. http://www.beard-growth.com/ I genuinely agree that beard does not suit on every single person but in many cases it depends on how the… Read more »
Yes! Finally! Now I can keep on keeping on. Bearded since 1995. Aah to be uncool again. 🙂
Ah, this David Yi guy probably can’t grow one so he wants them all gone.
An (extremely abridged) history of those who rocked the beard:
The Most Interesting Man in the World: 2006 – Present
Ulysses S Grant: 1822-1885
Shakespeare: 1564-1616
Charlemagne: 742-814
Jesus of Nazareth: 3 BC – 30 AD
Socrates: 470 – 399 BC
Ramses II: 1303 – 1213 BC
Odin, All-Father – ?
The beard is here to stay, people.
I accidentally left out a personal favorite:
Guan Yu: ? – 220 AD
– General to Liu Bei and one of the most revered historical figures of China. Known as the epitome of loyalty and righteousness, as well as for his long, luxurious BEARD.
So…beards were a hipster thing and now they’re not?
That only makes more fond of beards. Hipsters can go jump on the next bandwagon
Great news. Now I don’t have to announce my age to the world to be fashionable. The gray beard that doesn’t match my hair is a dead give-away. Maybe that’s why hipsterism was a youth movement.