Been surfin’ the internets since 1994, so thought I was familiar with every pejorative term in the human lexicon. But then I ran across “neckbeards” in Cecil’s column on (ick) that certain variety of cheese: Has anyone made cheese from human breast milk? - The Straight Dope
Is the implication that some men, otherwise clean-shaven, are too dumb to realize that necks need to be shaved, too? And therefore wind up looking like toilet brushes from their chins down to their collarbones, or…what???
I think he means the dippy sort of Amish look where you shave everything but the arc from ear to ear under your chin. (Like a fat furry hat string.)
One of the subjects of Hulu’s “Behind the Mask” has one and it looks so stupid I can barely watch those segments where he’s speaking.
I’ve heard the term used for the past few years. From how I’ve seen it used, it mostly seems to be synonymous with “fat, nerdy, socially inept guy”.
Good question… I was wondering too.
I assumed it meant the type of person who had difficulty growing a beard (i.e. "
not a real man") or was just starting out (pretentious, newbie wannabee, etc.) but instead of getting a fluffy chin and face, had a moderate pelt all over the face and down the neck - i.e. looks like the beard has only been growing for two months and not very full, but never trimmed around the edges and doesn’t grow well on the face.
Google is your friend, peeps. From urbandictionary.com: 1. (n) Facial hair that does not exist on the face, but instead on the neck. Almost never well groomed.
2. (n) Derogatory term for slovenly nerdy people who have no sense of hygene or grooming. Often related to hobbies such as card gaming, video gaming, anime, et. al.
I’ve also heard used as a perjorative applied to academic types who live in their own theoretical world and not the real one. Kind of like Sheldon Cooper. Thinks he knows all and has all the right answers and what’s best for those around him yet he lives in his own little world and tries to make the real world conform to his made up one.
Us more hairy guys get hair on our necks. That needs to be shaved too, or it looks like hell. It is generally splotchy. In my case only about a dozen hairs, with the thickness of head hair, not facial hair, which is thicker.
There are two basic types. There is the basement dwelling nerd with poor hygiene mentioned previously. The second is phenotypically similar to the “hipster” in that he is likely to be observed in a fedora, however, unlike the hipster, this type is likely to post angry screeds on Reddit excoriating his grandmother for wishing him a “Merry Christmas” and spends his internet time lamenting that it is society’s fault he doesn’t have a girlfriend. This is a neckbeard of the latter variety.
This article has a pretty good overview of the internet meme.
This thread reminds me of this pic :
It took me a while to figure out what the pic was actually depicting. Confusing, at first!
There is also this pic, which is an odd combination of frightening and funny :
Yes, but why is being fat, nerdy, socially inept, etc. associated with the peculiar style choice of shaving your face, but not under your chin?
I see a picture of a smartphone, an ad for gmail I think. No beards or necks.
Probably because enough people who fit the category did it so it became a meme. Like this guy.
I keep seeing people talking about “shaving your face but not your neck” and that has nothing to do with neckbeards. A neckbeard is simply any beard where the neck is not shaved, regardless of whatever else is shaved. The most common type of neckbeard is a complete lack of shaving, which a lot of people who don’t know anything about grooming think is a “full beard,” but it’s not because men with full beards shave their necks and trim the rest.
So like people have been saying, as a pejorative it means the sort of guy who never trims his beard and thinks it makes him look like Sean Connery, which is exactly the same kind of guy who wears a fedora with cargo shorts and thinks it makes him look like Humphrey Bogart.
Harry Knowles is the god of neckbeards
This link keeps complaining that my Gmail is unavailable, which is odd, since Chrome at least SHOULD know to keep me signed in to that.
My God man! How could you share such a link???
A Bing image search? For shame!
And here’s one that’s kickin’ it old school!
The problem is that it’s an attachment in one of gytalf2000’s Gmail messages. And you aren’t logged in as gytalf2000.
So we need a less person-specific link. 
