RV - Why Men Stopped Wearing Mustaches [0:00:00]
So, in 1918, there was a lot going on in the world. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh
day of the eleventh month, the Great War ended. The H1N1 virus known as the Spanish flue ravaged
the world and in particular targeted young people.
President Wilson released his Fourteen Points. Boston Red Sox defeated the Chicago Cubs to
win the World Series. U.S. unemployment was at 1.4% and a stamp cost 3 cents.
And, buried under all that, a lesser known, but important fact was men of culture statistically
we were at peak mustache. Seriously, gents, with 73% of grown men wearing
some type of facial hair, 66% chose to wear a mustache. Now, I say chose loosely because
the regulations going on that outlawed beard in certain situations.
But, if we look back, we can see that there were also trans mustache craziness going on.
Back in 1899, when 65% of men chose to wear a mustache of the 88% of the total population
that sported facial hair. And on a side note, you can see we had peak
facial hair in general in 1887 when 96% of men wore facial hair on a daily basis.
So, based off those numbers, what happened? A century later, we’ve got less than 30%
of men wearing facial hair and of that, only 2% wearing mustaches. Why did men stop wearing
it? So, to start things off let’s talk about
the history of the mustache. But, to do that, we need to first talk about the history of
facial hair. Now, since the beginning, men have been growing
facial hair, but it wasn’t until about 10,000 years ago that we have archeological evidence
that men were actually starting to style their facial hair.
Seriously, they were using clamp, shells, and rocks to cut and to shape and to pluck
facial hair into certain configurations. Later with the invention of bronze, metals,
and crude razors, the Egyptians and other cultures took it to a whole other level especially
for religious reasons, they wanted to have a certain type of look.
And let’s just say that some of these guys really cared about their facial hair. In fact,
in the 14th century, we find knights, their armor was actually made in a way to accommodate
their, yes, beautiful facial hair. Seriously, Edward the Prince of Wales on his
tomb in Canterbury Cathedral it shows the price in full battle dress chainmail encasing
his face and neck, but allowing his long whiskers to flow over the top.
But, it was really the Elizabethan era and King James I, when he came to the British
throne, he was so proud of is dapper moustache that he had basically tons of art made with
this. His son, King Charles I would go on to make
the goatee and the handlebar moustache iconic. You got to understand that these rulers at
the time were setting the fashion trends. If you wanted to be hip, if you wanted to
be in, then you copied what these guys were doing.
And that’s why Sir Anthony van Dyck at his portraits that were passed around and the
fashion trends that ensued, everybody wanted to have a van Dyck facial hair.
Unless you didn’t, unless you wanted to push back, unless you wanted to be a little
bit of revolutionary like Oliver Cromwell and we look at his very frugal mustache that
he sported. And even after revolutions, the mustache continued to be a symbol of power.
King Charles II, he ruled with a mustache from 1660 to 1685. And, what’s funny as
you look at some of these portraits of him in his early teens, notice he’s still got
that big burly mustache. Yeah, somebody here was brown-nosing.
Now, gentlemen, if you enjoy videos like these, do me a favor and smash the like button. Seriously,
you want me to grow a mustache? I got to see a whole lot of likes here.
Now, really quick pop quiz. Let’s see if you can identify the man behind the mustache.
So, this first mustache right here, pretty easy. But, yeah, I mean, who do you think
this is? Guys, it is Charlie Chaplin, not Adolf Hitler.
I know some of you guys thought, But, here’s the thing is that both of them sported this
mustache. Charlie Chaplin had it first. Adolf Hitler later on picked this up.
And this was actually a pretty popular mustache at the time, but because of the association
with Hitler, this is something unless you are Michael Jordan, you’re not going to
be rocking it. Next up, this one right here, a little bit
more artistic especially if you like, yeah, you like clocks that are melting all over
the place. Who is this right here? Salvador Dali.
Now, this one, we’re going back a little bit further, but very distinctive. Civil war
anybody – anybody guess this one? Okay. Right here, Ambrose Burnside.
Now, this one right here, if you were an outlaw and you’re in Kansas or maybe Tombstone,
Arizona you see this mustache coming at you, you basically drop your weapons and you just
surrender because, yeah, anyone know? Wyatt Earp.
Now, what about this mustache right here? This guy works in what? Parks and recreation,
he’s got a pretty cute, but weird secretary. And, yeah, he does not want to be bothered
with anything. That is Ronald Ulysses Swanson. So now, let’s start to talk about the fall
of the mustache in facial hair in general. So, we saw at the end of the 19th century,
a stronger association of what caused infections. Germs all of a sudden Pasteur and everything
that we’re seeing, we are aware that you’ve got to maintain cleanliness and beards were
seen as unclean. [0:04:55]
Seriously, in New York 1902, milkmen all of a sudden have to get rid of their whiskers
and be clean-shaven. Notice I didn’t say completely shaven. I said clean-shaven.
King Gillette 1904, all of a sudden starts making these razors more available and we
see hospitals throughout the UK basically tell their doctors, workers, everyone needs
to be clean-shaven for the patients. Men are creatures of habit, they did not want
to give up their facial hair. And in 1910, we still saw almost 75% of men sporting beards,
mustaches, and the like. That being said, new habits can be formed
especially when you join the military. 1914, the Great War starts and all of a sudden,
we have gas being used. So, gas masks are issued and guess what? If
you’ve got a beard, you cannot get a great seal with a good gas mask. And most of the
gas mask were not that great, so you wanted to make sure that you were shaven, so that
you could get some protection from that mustard gas or whatever it may be.
And, guys, it was something that regulations came down, hey, you got to be completely shaven.
Now, officers and certain levels of enlisted men were actually allowed to maintain guess
what? A mustache, well-trimmed within regs and all of a sudden we saw the rise of the
mustache. And this is when we had peak mustache because
you could actually still have something was masculine something manly, that facial hair,
but you just couldn’t have the beard. Now, after the Great War going through the
1920s, 1930s, this is when we saw the mustache come in its own. All of a sudden, you have
all these men returning with these new habits and guess what? They love that mustache.
And for that twenty to thirty years, we saw the mustache just simply become one of the
more dominant pieces. And that’s why when we look at movies throughout that time period,
pictures any type of media, we see men in a variety of different mustaches.
Pencil-thin mustache, thicker mustaches, but mustaches are all over the place. And the
loser here was the beard. Yes, the beard started make a comeback in the 1920s, but it faltered
off and all of a sudden you saw fashion trends. You saw the rise of Hollywood, you saw all
these actors all these people that we’re looking up to are wearing mustaches, not beards
and all of a sudden, that became the fashion trend. Something that not only the younger
guys are doing, but some of the older guys were trying as well.
All that being said, facial hair in general continued to decline with the proliferation
of the safety razors, a huge improvement from the straight razor, which is beautiful, but
can be dangerous, especially in a guy that doesn’t know how to use it, all of a sudden,
shaving was easy. And we continue to see not only the mustache
decline, but the beard and sideburns completely disappeared as a style.
And World War II didn’t help any. Again, the regulations kicked in. Different services
had different regulations, but usually when you’re going through boot camp guess what?
No facial hair at all. And, again, men are creatures of habit and
we can develop new habits especially when you’ve got a drill instructor yelling at
you. All of a sudden, you know what? You go three to four years shaving every single day
or when you can and all of a sudden, you get used to it. This becomes your new look.
You get out of the military in the 1940s, 1950s, all of a sudden it is the decade the
years of conforming to the fashion to the times.
And this takes us to the 1948 election, very close between Dewey and Truman. Right here,
you’ve got pictures of the two candidates and guess what? It was Dewey’s mustache
according to some researchers why a number of women did not vote for him and possibly
men. But, the reason being is that many women felt
that this was a guy that was stuck in tradition. He was not going to be sensitive to women’s
issues. And that takes me to the next reason, which
I know will be somewhat controversial, but that is because of the demands of women.
And this is something that’s interesting because you look at any of the cosmopolitans
any of the books, even today, they talk about can a man look good sexy in a mustache. And
a lot of women are all over the place on this. If you listen to them, you are in trouble
because they’re going to say, yeah, a guy can pull it off if he does the right look.
Otherwise, it is horrible. Now, that type of research, I wouldn’t listen
to, but they do have a point that Howard Taft was the last president elected that had a
mustache. No president since then has had a mustache because research does show that
women feel a guy with facial hair, he may come off as more masculine. But, guess what?
He also seems less attuned to their issues. So, it’s safe to say politicians too note.
And when you got the guys at the top not wearing beards, not sporting mustaches, all of a sudden
guess what? We started thinking, we see the fashion trend, you see everyone else stop
sporting mustaches and beards. Now, of course there are guys that buck the
trend. 1980, you got Freddie Mercury sporting his mustache in and everyone’s complaining.
There were all of these women saying, “Oh, I hate the look.” I mean, joke’s on them,
right than Freddie Mercury? But, point being is that he’s like, I don’t
care. I’m wearing this for myself. In fact, in a concert, he asked people what they thought,
he got, you know, some cheers, he got some, you know, yells. He’s like, “I don’t
give a damn what you think. I’m going to wear it for me.”
We’ve also got Anthony Kiedis, the front man for Red Hot Chili Peppers. Did I pronounce
his name correctly? If I messed it up, let me know in the comments.
I love that band, but in 2011, he started sporting a mustache and they started like
petition online. A lot of women saying, “Hey, he’s got to get rid of it.” He’s like
just thinks of it as a joke. He’s going to do what he wants to do.
[0:10:06] And this takes me to the next reason why facial
hair and the mustache in particular has become almost extinct and that’s because it seems
like society villainizes the wearing of it. Seriously, the words, porn stash, and every
worse, pedo stash, all that implies that you’re some type of sexual deviant if you’re wearing
a mustache. In fact, those two words right there are going to be more familiar with people
than the actual proper names of mustaches. Seriously, pop quiz right here. What is this
particular style of mustache? Do you know? This is called the chevron.
All right. So, I’m going to throw you guys an easy one. You’ve got to know this one.
Come on, look at, yeah, this one is the handle bar. And this one right here, I mentioned
earlier, not it’s popular nowadays, actually seeing is evil. I don’t know for why.
Right here, we’ve got the pencil. Well, actually, maybe we do know why. The author
of One Thousand Mustaches, he talked about the history of the mustache, especially in
Christian religion and how it was associated with the devil.
The popular image of Satan was depicted off of the Greek god Pan, who had a pencil-thin
mustache. In addition, think of all the villains you’ve seen as a kid that are depicted with
mustaches, especially in the case of twins, how do you differentiate the bad twin from
the good twin? You give the bad twin a mustache. How do you – how do you identify that bad
guy? He’s got that, you know, that skinny mustache, he’s got that Russian accent.
Yes, being married to a Ukrainian, she has noted that almost all bad people in movies
seem to have some type of Slavic accent. And let’s not forget about all the sexual
deviances especially in the 1990s, 2000s. Just look at Napoleon Dynamite, you got Kip,
you got Uncle Rico. Both of them sexual deviants and they got those mustaches. Yeah.
That being said if coach put them in the fourth quarter, he would have won that game. They
would have won state and he would have thrown that football over that mountain.
So, this next reason why mustaches have disappeared, I really haven’t seen anyone talk about
it and I’d love to hear you guys’ thoughts in the comments below. But, my thoughts and
this is based off some 1989 research that showed that men and more masculine environments
-- basically surrounded by all men – they’re more likely to have facial hair because they
want to exert dominance over other men. Not because it’s going to be attractive to women.
So, as more women entered the work space especially in teaching spaces, all of a sudden, you had
just tons of women. And because there were less men, you didn’t have to sport any type
of facial hair, no mustaches or anything to exert dominance because simply, you just being
a man, all of a sudden, that was enough to actually show you were versus, again, around
other me. Now, this point is important because a lot
of guys think that facial hair, mustaches, beards that they wear them because they want
to attract women. Well, here is the thing is women – I mean,
they’re somewhat narrow some women that are drawn definitely to mustaches and facial
hair. But, in general, women look at the number of factors and they look at your rank in the
hierarchy. That’s one of the biggest factors they look at, your ability to provide based
off of how other men treats you. And to further back this up, they did that
survey of 6,000 men and they found that men with mustaches on average made 8.2% more than
men with beards and over 4% more than men that were clean-shaven.
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course, I’m proud to support them. So, why did mustaches disappear? Because over
the last hundred fifty years, so many factors conspired against them. Laws, banning the
mustache and facial hair. Women actually saying, you know what? This isn’t a preference of
mine. I’m not going to vote for you if you’re wearing a mustache. All of a sudden, fashion
trends start to go against this. We see the guys at the top sporting, that
clean-shaven look, so guess what? We follow suit. And if you try to buck the trend, if
you decide I’m going to wear a mustache no matter what, guess what? You are portrayed
as the villain, as the bad guy, as the perv. All that being said, if someone were to ask
me should I grow a mustache? My answer would be yes, because there is so much good and
when you think about it, at the base level, the whole idea here is interpretation and
people pressing their views on something as simple as facial under the nose.
[0:14:54] So, if you think about it in its basest sense,
when you choose to grow a mustache, you are making a choice. The majority of us that shaved
our entire face, we are conforming to a fashion trend.
But, anyone that’s growing a beard, anyone that’s growing any type of facial hair can
tell you, when you make this choice, you’re going to have some people in your life that
are going to be against it. Other people are going to support you. Ah, half ass. Other
people that are going to, you know, a few that are going to say, welcome to the club.
But, at the end of the day, you are making a choice about how you present yourself to
the world. In a nutshell, gents, I think mustaches are as nuanced as the men who wear them.
Opting to wear a mustache, you‘re opting to be remembered. You’re opting to stand
up. You’ve made a choice that this is who I am and this is what I stand for. And I think
that’s a great thing when you decide, you know what? I’m – I’m going to be looked
over and that’s better than being overlooked. And, yes, of course, some people that don’t
know you may find it creepy, some people that know you may actually not like it. But, if
you can wear it confidence, I think you’ll be cool, collected, yeah, you can even be
captivating. All right, gents, so what video to watch next?
How about why did men stop wearing capes? Seriously, what happened here? Why did we
give up on the cape? They’re absolutely beautiful. The Marine Corps boat cloak, it
makes an appearance in this video. If you’re interested, check it out, guys.
It is I – I think a really interesting video. Yeah, it’s a good one, go check it out.
I – I – I got to be careful of my smile, it just feels weird with this.
[0:16:16] End of audio