- So I've had a lot of comments
on the channel over the years, being like,
"Joey, you should share your hair loss journey."
As if I have some epic tale,
a dramatic story arc, infused with life lessons,
a coming of age tale, but in reality,
it's not something I've really thought about much.
Hair loss was always in the cards for me.
Growing up, my dad really didn't have much hair
and my two older brothers shaved their head
due to male pattern baldness when I was around 12 years old.
When they did that at the time,
I didn't really think much of it,
probably for like five minutes, I said,
"Oh, that's kind of weird.
You look kind of dumb,"
but then the novelty wore off
and they were just my brothers,
the same brothers that I always knew since birth,
but when it was my turn and I started seeing symptoms,
I wasn't so nonchalant about it.
Growing up, I always looked older than I actually was,
even right now that fact rings true.
I'm 25 years old.
A lot of people think I'm like 32.
So when I was a kid, I really took pride in the fact
that I looked older than I am,
that way I could boss other kids around
and seem like an adult before I actually was,
even though I didn't have two brain cells
to rub together back then.
So when I was 16 years old, my barber told me,
"Hey, you're starting to lose your hair."
I kind of freaked out internally.
It's like the "SpongeBob" meme
where he's calm on the surface,
but internally losing its shit
and I was like, "You know what, this is kind of a bummer.
Now I'm gonna look really old,
like I'm going to look 40 when I'm 17."
But I didn't really do anything about it.
I started to notice that my hair
was starting to recede at the temples,
but it was slow enough that I didn't feel the need
to do anything about it.
I was just hoping and praying
that my hair might last me somewhat into university.
Oh, we should probably just fast forward
to photos of me when I'm 18 years old.
This is sort of high school graduation territory
and you can start to see
that I'm receding at the temples fairly significantly
for an 18 year old.
I definitely do not have like a squared off head of hair
at 18 years old.
And this is the summer
before I went into my freshman year of university.
So into university, you can see that my hair,
it's still there, you know, it's still fairly thick on top,
but definitely lots more temple is showing.
If I had actually done something about it,
I would've had a decently full head of hair to work with
and potentially experienced some regrowth
to the point where I would almost have
a full head of hair right now.
You and me would be talking, having this conversation,
actually, it's a one-way conversation,
I'm just talking at you,
but we would be doing this together
and I would have hair on the top of my head, but I didn't.
I was in denial.
I just said, "You know what, I don't wanna worry about it.
I don't really care that much."
But I think I did care.
It did affect me.
And we'll get into that a little bit later.
You can already see by the end of my first year,
there's a lot of temple there
and I don't know what I was doing with my hair at the time,
but it was not doing me any favors.
I was slicking that right back, kind of curling it back.
You could tell, this man is losing his hair,
like a middle-aged man at 18 years old.
And I think at the time it affected me subconsciously
whether I was aware of it or not.
So I'd start to wear hats a little bit more often,
trying to cover it up, but the hair loss got worse.
Here's me at the start of my second year.
There's a lot more forehead.
I'm starting to keep my hair shorter on top,
because I noticed it would just draw
a little bit less attention to the fact
that I was balding and I'd keep my hair very short
on the sides as well.
Just trying to do some techniques
that didn't look absolutely ridiculous.
I didn't wanna look like I was trying to hide the fact
that I had a receding hairline.
I kind of wanted it just to look clean and out of the way,
but then it got worse and obviously,
you know, that's what happens with male pattern baldness.
It doesn't just get better.
So here's me playing piano at some gig or something
with my brother, Eli.
I was cutting my own hair at that point,
buzzing it all the way up to the sides
and then leaving it lengthy on top.
It kind of is an optical illusion from the side.
It makes me look like I'm kinda going
for that Mohawk look, but it's not a great look.
I do look very pointy.
My entire head kind of looks like a crescent moon.
I think my third year is when I should've bit the bullet
and shaved my head.
I even started a YouTube channel in my third year
and it was called, Better Ideas and I had hair
and you guys can tell, it doesn't look that great.
It was starting to do that weird androgenic alopecia thing,
where it was starting to get thicker on the sides,
like right around the ears
and then kind of getting a little bit puby on top.
Sorry, mom.
It just wasn't a very good look.
It just didn't look fresh.
It wasn't the best version of what I could be doing
and here's the weird thing psychologically
as to why I didn't shave my head.
It wasn't because I wasn't aware of the fact
that I would probably look better
if I just bit the bullet and shaved my head,
but it was just the fact
that I had lived my whole life with hair
and it was almost like I didn't want to say goodbye.
I attached a part of my identity to my hair.
I almost felt like I wasn't ready
to become a new person by shaving my head.
I wasn't ready to present to the world
that I'm a new person now.
I finally let it go.
I'm no longer in denial
and obviously you don't think these things consciously,
it's just sort of a subconscious identity crisis you have.
You're kind of at a crossroads.
Do I just let go of my hair as a variable in my life
or do I continue to hold onto it for whatever it's worth,
despite the fact that it's not serving me anymore?
But I pressed on for at least another year.
This was when it really started to just not look so good.
I definitely have this sort of like bowl shaped thing
going on on my head, two semi-circles
and from the top, it was starting to thin
right on the crown.
So here's the year before I shaved my head.
Everyone's looking suave.
Here's all my brothers.
Here's a bald brother of mine.
Here's another bald brother of mine
and then some non balds, look at this non-bald right here,
non-bald right here, non-bald right here.
Then here's the funny thing about Daniel,
is actually he was starting to recede here,
but he actually did something about it
and now he has sort of, you know, more hair,
like way more hair than he did when he was losing it.
That's what happens when you're proactive.
So good on Daniel for not denying reality
so he can improve upon it.
Either way, my hair's really looking rough at this point.
It's definitely like an advanced Jude Law look
and I don't have Jude Law's face,
so it doesn't work as well for me as it does for him.
So at the end of my fourth year,
the summer between fourth and fifth year,
I finally bit the bullet and I shaved it off.
All right, let's film this video.
So I shaved my head.
I think it looks a lot better, to be honest.
I was really postponing that.
My hairline was like,
I mean, you can see where my hairline is
and I had like a little bit of hair kind of like,
that I'd do this with and then you turn my head,
it'd be all thin up here.
It looks like I'm not trying to hide anything anyway.
And I sent some photos to my friends and family being like,
"Yo, look, I shaved my head."
And they're like, "It looks good, dude."
That's it, you know,
I've met with some friends that summer
and they'd be like, "Oh, you shaved your head."
I'm like, "Yeah," they're like, "Yeah, it looks good, man."
That's it, you know, all that buildup for,
you know, 22 years or whatever it was,
led to the reaction of people being like,
"Oh, it looks good."
And then treating me like they've always treated me.
You know, it doesn't really...
It's not a thing, like, it just doesn't matter.
And what I've learned over this whole process
is that nobody cares, even when my hair was receding,
unless you had somebody else
who was really self-conscious about their hair,
they would probably compare it with you and be like,
"Oh, that guy's receding a little bit more than me,"
but all in all, you know, nobody's thinking about your hair
more than you are.
And when you shave it off, it's not like a big reveal
and it's like the "Princess Bride"
where you have this giant glow up,
there's a glow up in the "Princess Bride"?
No, "Princess Diaries", I think.
Yeah, it's not like that.
Nobody cares, nobody cares before you shave it off,
nobody cares after you shave it off.
Your hair is just dead protein on the top of your head,
do what's best for you.
In my opinion, if your hairline is receding
to an advanced degree, it probably will look better
when you shave it off,
but do I care if you shave your hair off or not?
No, so just make the decision based on what's best for you.
And funny enough, since shaving my head,
I feel like I have actually gotten more confident,
especially when meeting strangers
and it's totally a subconscious thing,
because I don't have to think about the fact
that I have an incomplete hairline.
I don't have a hairline anymore.
I literally can't have a bad hair day.
I can also walk faster, because I'm more aerodynamic.
I can also tell when it's raining quicker than anyone else.
I can jump higher, swim faster,
I've basically become a god, but in all seriousness,
the moral of the story, I guess I can conclude
from my hair loss journey,
is that no one really thinks about you
nearly as much as you think about yourself, not even close.
Most people, most of the time are not thinking about you
and that might be a little bit of a hit to the ego,
but it's the truth.
Most people are mostly thinking about themselves.
So to think that people are like sitting down
at a Christmas dinner, thinking about Joey's hairline
is such a joke, but that's how our brain,
we always think that's gonna happen.
The same could be said, not just about hair loss,
but about a mole that you happen to have on your upper lip
or a zit that you have on your forehead one day.
It's a huge deal to you maybe,
but really you're just kind of like a background character
in most people's lives
and they're not really thinking about you at all.
So why would you put yourself through the trouble,
the mental distress, to let that affect you?
So, yeah, that's the story of my hair loss journey.
I hope you guys got something out of this
or at least just had some fun getting to know me better
and you know, kind of picking apart
a little bit of my history.
Maybe you could learn a thing or two from this,
but if not, maybe you'll learn a thing or two
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learn something new, explore your creativity
and as usual, have a great time.
And if you liked this video,
make sure that you actually hit the like button,
because when you hit the like button,
the algorithm shoves my bald head
into other people's homepages,
helping them out, which also helps me out,
so it's kind of a win-win for everybody involved,
this whole Better Ideas community can grow and that's good.
That's a good thing.
And if you're lurking here and this is the thousandth time
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consider hitting that subscribe button.
Other than that, thank you so much for watching.
Make sure to check out the second channel,
because there's lots of fun content on there
and I'm a lot more casual,
like I was in this video on there,
so if you like this style of video,
hit up the second channel, it's a great time.
Other than that, thank you so much for watching
and we'll catch you in the next video.
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