It seems like beards are everywhere.
Celebrities, athletes — cat beards are even a thing, because why the hell not?
A report by Simmons estimates that 20% of men in the US
have beards.
Which is up from 14% in 2009.
But beards weren’t always this popular, and history tells us that there might actually
be a limit to their popularity.
Like all trends, the popularity of facial hair ebbs and flows.
Sociologist Dwight Robinson conducted a study going back through 130 years of the Illustrated
London News,
examining the prevalence of facial hair among prominent members of British society in its
pages.
And he found that beards were extremely popular during the late 1800s,
with almost half of men featured in the paper having facial hair during that era.
But around the turn of the 20th century, Robinson noticed a major drop
that’s continued over the past century.
Curiously enough, this trend is almost perfectly reflected in the facial hair of US presidents
too.
Most presidents have been cleanshaven.
But between 1861 and 1913 all but two, Andrew Johnson and William McKinley, rocked facial
hair.
William Howard Taft was the last US president to have facial hair, with the end of his tenure
almost perfectly coinciding with the drop-off in Robinson’s study.
And every president since Taft has been totally baby-faced.
So why do beards come and go like this?
Researchers have a few ideas on the matter.
Author Stephen Mihm says that the prevalence of beards is inextricably tied to trends in
capitalism.
You
begin to see, among business elites, a significant growth, no pun intended, of beards
on the kind of robber barons and titans of industry.
It seems safe suddenly to wear beards.
Beards became a signifier of strength and rugged individuality
and were proudly worn by some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the country.
And then in the late 19th century, you see a return of the bearded radical.
In this case, a lot of anarchists depicted in caricatures and cartoons wearing
huge Karl Marx-style beards.
It’s around that time, by the early 20th century, I think, as beards become synonymous
with anti-capitalism again,
that you really begin to see beards eclipsed once more.
Beards began to be associated with these radicals and fell out of favor
in general society,
and have largely remained on the fringe until relatively recently.
During this period, the cleanshaven look became a la mode in the US,
signifying distinguishment and middle-class status in what
Harper’s Weekly labeled “the revolt against the whisker.”
Now let’s fast-forward about 100 years.
The tech boom provided loads of money and power to
a lot of characteristically disheveled figures.
Well, I certainly see a parallel between the tech sector
generally and the kind of Gilded Age titans.
Breaking away from the sterilized corporate style of CEOs of the ’80s,
these new tycoons fancied themselves eccentric outsiders
and nonconformists,
helping usher in a new era of beard acceptance and popularity.
Whether of the artisanal, designer, or woodland varieties,
beards are back.
Beards seem to be enjoying a moment in the sun, but could
their days be numbered?
Actually, maybe.
A study from 2014 hypothesizes that there might be something
called “peak beard.”
Or negative frequency-dependent selection.
Which is a super-fancy way of saying that when beards
get too popular,
cleanshaven men begin to be perceived as rarer and
more attractive by comparison.
If that theory holds true, then given how popular beards have
gotten in the past few years,
we could expect to see a lot more cleanshaven faces on the horizon.