I suspect the popularity of beards among young men is related to the fact that the danged women are in their faces all of the time and allowed to do whatever the men do. Growing a beard is one of the few male pursuits left them.
Well, okay. But growing a beard isn’t a “pursuit”. It’s a natural bodily function of a man, requiring no effort. Same as the hair growing on your head.
The recent beard trend is a desperate grasp for symbols of masculinity in an increasingly emasculated society populated by males who did not have good role models as children, and who thus do not know what it is to be real man.
For real.