Don't like long beards, huh?
Posted on 11/17/2014 4:43:47 AM PST by LeoMcNeil
Have you noticed men wearing extremely long Civil War style beards lately? The so-called lumbersexual is essentially engaging in a pop-culture extreme overreaction to the metrosexual. You’ll recall the metrosexuals are generally straight men who spend an excessive amount of time on grooming and their clothes. In some ways the metrosexual mirrors certain aspects of the homosexual culture in this regard. The lumbersexual, in extreme overreaction to the metrosexual, has decided that the beard is the height of masculinity and demonstrate that masculinity in extreme manner. Both the metrosexual and the lumbersexual are just following the crowd, very few of them actually think for themselves. In the case of the lumbersexual, he’s adopted an absurd definition of masculinity.
We live in a society wherein everyone insists they’re unique and special, with many believing their clothing and appearance demonstrate their unique specialness. Of course the people insisting they’re unique the loudest are usually the ones who look exactly like everyone else in their little sub group. The goth’s are a good example, they insist on their uniqueness and yet every last one of them looks identical. They’re aren’t unique, they’re just following the crowd without admitting it. The same has always been true of the metrosexual, who pretends that his interest in grooming sets him apart from all the other men who in his mind are slobs. In reality, all the metrosexuals look identical. They wear the same style of clothing and groom themselves in relatively the same manner. There’s nothing unique about them as individuals, they’re following the trends of a particular group.
The so-called lumbersexuals are no different. Tired of men spending more time in the bathroom grooming themselves than women, these men have decided to grow long beards and care little of their appearance. Yet in doing so they aren’t demonstrating anything unique about themselves. All they’re doing is showing the world that they to can follow cultural trends. These days it’s popular for men to demonstrate their masculinity via a beard, so the lumbersexuals all have obnoxiously long beards. Congratulations guys, you to can follow cultural trends while pretending to be unique. Worse, you imagine you’re making some sort of statement against men behaving in a vaguely feminine way. In doing so, the lumbersexuals have accepted the progressive notion that every single daily event is a political statement. We need not make political statements to the world via our grooming and clothing. Yet the lumbersexuals as a group are doing just that.
You don’t prove your masculinity via your beard. It makes no sense for men to settle for such a superficial and cheap definition of masculinity. Yet the lumbersexuals, in their extreme overreaction to the metrosexuals, are cheapening masculinity to the point where a beard defines it. A man, it appears, is nothing more than a beard. Why are these men, who apparently are interested in demonstrating masculinity, allowing such to be defined in such an irrelevant manner? Masculinity isn’t demonstrated by a beard, it’s demonstrated in how a man treats a woman, how he loves his children and most importantly in how he loves Jesus Christ. A beard is frankly irrelevant to masculinity. You can love your children and God with or without a beard, it really matters not. You can treat women in a chivalrous manner with or without a beard. Why are we allowing progressives to cheapen masculinity to our beards?
Of course no one sporting a long beard and calling themselves masculine has spent a moment thinking about how they’ve cheapened masculinity. They’re just following the crowd, the same as the metrosexuals, the goths, the hipsters and so on. No one bothers to think about anything they’re doing these days, they just react with emotion and follow everyone else. That’s ultimately the problem here, no one thinks for themselves anymore. That doesn’t stop people from imaging they’re special snowflakes or unique individuals while they follow the crowd. It says a lot about education in this country, the government schools in particular aren’t teaching kids to think. As a result we have a legion of men growing obnoxiously long beards while believing they’re making a statement against overly groomed men. Worse, they believe their beard is a sign of their masculinity. No wonder our nation is in such bad shape.
Writing about it doesn’t either...
I've been doing this for years. Be danged if some metrosexual complaints are going to stop it.
/johnny
So...metrosexuals don’t think for themselves. And lumbersexuals don’t think for themselves.
Let me guess...only Leo McNeil thinks for himself. Am I right?
I’ve got a beard & had it likely before article writer was born. My dad taught me how to be a man and act like one in all aspects of my life. My beard has nothing to do with it even though we both had one when I came off my first MED Sea deployment in 1978 as a for fun contest between us. My beard is about like Gabby the prospector in Blazing Saddles not ZZ Top LOL.
The last year he has grown his beard longer. People were photo shopping his face in the place of “the most interesting man”, Jonathan Goldsmith. He now looks like uncle Phil on DD. I like Phil, but I miss the Dos Equis man.
I’ll tell you this, I am wildly attracted to facial hair, but ONLY short beards, really short.
I detest dirty, nasty looking long beards. wwwwww
Don't like long beards, huh?
“Lumbersexual” doesn’t flow off the tongue like metrosexual. And it’s a convoluted connection. We’re supposed to think of ‘lumberjacks’?? Lumberjacks are supposed to have full beards?
They need a better word to describe guys with beards....Amish? Marxists? Mountain Men?
I noticed you did not bother to address the people who have had beards for years, or even decades, and who have had them when they were unpopular, had them when they were popular, and REALLY don’t care what a bunch of city-folk do; or, more importantly, what they think.
Perhaps you should expand you “research” (assuming you have done any in the first place) to areas more rural than whatever city you live in. Maybe you should tell some bikers/machinists/auto mechanics/farmers/truck drivers/etc from western Virginia or Kentucky that their beards “cheapen” their masculinity, and then you can explain how the only reason they wear beards is to lamely and blindly go along with the latest urban fashion trend.
Do me a favor, though, take along someone to videotape the encounter and post the results here.
I’ve been on a no shave program from around Labor Day until May for 25 years. Don’t care what anyone thinks about it.
I have noticed those who complain about beards usually are too scraggly faced to grow a decent one...
That's funny. Thanks for the laugh.
Ever since the clean shaven look became popular in the early 20th century there has always been a subset of men who kept a beard. Most of them kept beards for practical reasons, especially those up north who worked outdoors. Those people aren’t the issue at all, nor are those 50 and above who have worn beards their whole lives.
The issue here is relatively young men, 35 and under generally, who all of a sudden in the last 2-3 years have decided obnoxiously long civil war beards are THE thing. These guys are just following the crowd, following the trends. In doing so, they’re part of an extreme overreaction to the metrosexuals. They’ve centered their masculinity around their beard, some of them will even tell you real men grow beards. If you click on the link to my blog, one commenter called me a “fag” who couldn’t grow a beard. It is utterly absurd that these people are reducing masculinity down to a beard, as though a beard is what makes a man. That’s who these “lumbersexuals” are, not 55 year old men who have had a beard for 30 years and who haven’t cared what other people think of their appearance since they got married.
The only downside to a beard I see is that they are uncomfortable
If you like a beard, have one.
If you don’t like a beard, don’t have one.
There you go.
No he just has one thought. But he can write several paragraphs saying that same thought over and over in a different way.
My father in law wore a grizzly killer beard for years. When he got out of the Air Force he gave up the razor. I wish he could read this. He’d cuss, and laugh.
probably where he keeps his bait
Lol, the author is over thinking this. Beards are easy, and Duck Dynasty made the acceptable again.
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