Shaved Head & Goatee: the new Mullet?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Wow, for a board fighting ignorance there is surely a lot of stereotyping going on here. All SHGs are ex mulleters? All SHGs are republicans with tattos driving trucks staring down people at traffic lights? Shees, talk about yer ignorance.

A fad? Hows that? How many Egyptians wore mullets? How many shaved their heads? Shaolin monks, Tibetan monks, Egyptian royalty, etc, etc. The list goes one. Shaving ones head might not have been in style in the 40’s and 50’s, but it isn’t a new fad. It is as universal as long hair on guys. It is as old as recorded history. The goatee thing may be a fad, I will agree with you there, but it is a fad that has been around for about 15+ years. I would say that it isn’t short lived by that defintion alone.

Personally I shaved because my hair was thinning and didn’t want that trashy thinning look or eventually get what I call “horshoe hair.” The ol wrap around hair that balding people have. At 27 this would be the end of my dating life. Not that I have much of one anyhow. Thankfully having a shaved head look is in, and most negative connotations associated with it are gone: The typical racist, southern or biker guy with the dangerous intent. Calling it a fad though is just rediculous. BTW, here are some famous balding people:

Oh, and for the record, I don’t think I look like a thumb. And I have never, ever had a mullet. I don’t listen to boy bands, and I certainly don’t drive a big truck and stare down people at traffic lights. I also smile occasionally.

42

Hmmm. None of the goateed men I know (including myself) had a mullet ten years ago. They must all be over here.

In the closet next to my piano-key tie and parachute pants, apparently.

No need. Anyone who says bald isn’t beautiful, just point them at a picture of Mitch Pileggi. That’ll shut 'em up.

43

Well, I’ve been shaving my head for 10 years – I sometimes have a goatee, sometimes have a full (but shortly trimmed) beard and occasionally I bust out with the moustrash (AKA the Fu- Manchu). So, I guess that makes me a fulltime S’er and a part-time G’er.

I have no plans on changing my look anytime soon, whether that means I’m in or out, whether I am hip this week or the mullet of the year. Any of those options are fine with me. I’ll leave the worrying about what is hip and what isn’t to someone else. Have fun with that, K?

44

Most stereotypes have a basis in reality, no matter how slight. I walk past a road crew. Goatee, goatee, no goatee, goatee. I talk to some mechanics at a garage. Goatee, goatee, goatee. I look around at my relatives at a wedding. Goatee, goatee, goatee, no goatee, no goatee, goatee, goatee.

10, 12 years ago I looked at the same people and saw mullet, mullet, mullet, mullet, no mullet, mullet, mullet.

45

Whe I lived in Denver in the late 1990s, goatee demographics were much different. Sure, they were common, but among what I called the “Joe Colorado” crowd; outdoorsy 20someting and 30someting middle to upper middle class men, most working professionals, who drove Jeeps and smaller Japanese SUVs, usualy with a Labrador Retriever named Aspen or Moab in the back. They usually wore a cloth baseball cap from a microbrewery, and tried to impress women by donning shorts during the winter and boasting about bagging fourteeners. However, the goatees on the Joe Colorado crowd weren’t accompanied by shaved heads; if you saw hair underneath the baseball cap, it was often in the form of a ponytail.

I moved from Denver to Orlando in 2000. No goatees there; instead, mullets reigned supreme, particularly among working-class white men of a Confederate cultural orientation. Never noticed any deliberately bald heads.

Orlando to Kansas City in late 2002. You did see mullets from time to time, mostly in enclaves where there were working-class white men of a Confederate cultural orientation. Go to a sports bar, though, and you saw the shaved head and goatee look everywhere.

Kansas City to Cleveland in late 2003. Here; mullets are seen mostly on folks trapped in the 1980s, or what we called groders, heshers and motorheads back in high school. Guys at construction job sites, road crews, and in sports bars: shaved head with goatees dominate, with a corrolary of pickup trucks bearing Bush-Cheney '04 stickers in close proximity.

46

I’ve had a goatee for about 8 years, I guess. No mullets in my past. My hair has always been pretty short, and I’m coming closer to shaving my head as my bald spot begins to grow.

I’ve got a pair of piano key suspenders you can have to complete your set.

47

I’ve had the shaved-head-and-goatee look since 1995. I originally shaved because I’ve always had thinnish hair- which, coupled with a very high (and rising) forehead, just made me look old. So I shaved…

And found that, without a beard, my head looked like a pink balloon tethered to my shoulders. So I grew the beard.

I’ve gotten compliments on it… the lovely Fionn, for one. :slight_smile:

It is NOT a mullet. I did it before it was cool. I didn’t do it to belong to any group- heck, I wish there were fewer guys out there trying to steal my look.

It’s low-maintenance, and suits my face. Dammit.

48

Yeah, sure- basis in reality. Lets not forget the 300,000 other people you are not paying attention to that have goatees too. Like the 100 middle class computer programers, the twenty goatees down at the yatch club, the 100 goatees at the golf club, etc etc. Most stereotypes have very little basis in reality and only conform to a persons bias’. It just so happens that the typical condition for those that believe in stereotypes are justifying a racist or other bigoted view point.

Goatess (and shaved heads for that matter), cover a very wide demograph and to say that because 25% of the total numbers of SHGs are thugs or trashy or what have you is just being bigoted, 25% isn’t enough to justify a stereotype.

Guess how many people I see that have hair? You know, there is quite a few of those hair-having people out there and guess what. There are alot of criminals that have hair, so therefore, having hair is a stereotype of scum sucking criminals. There is your very own logic back at ya.

49

Have you seen the ads for the Blue Collar Comedy Tour? One of the comics calls himself Larry the Cable Guy; his schtick is working-class/redneck. What do you think Larry the Cable Guy wears onstage to create the impression that he is, indeed, a cable-laying, beer-drinking, Nascar-watching blue collar guy? A flannel work shirt, a baseball hat, and–not a mullet–a goatee.

Don’t know why it bothers you so much that I think goatees are the mullets of the new millenium.

50

I am shaved bald. (It was that or the Friar Tuck look)

I have a goatee because, well, if I don’t have facial hair people will assume I’m a cancer patient.

I could grow the full beard back, I guess? Would that look weird with a bald head?

51

My husband’s on his way to the bald with beard look. I’ll let you know when he gets there.

52

Hey, Epimetheus, how you doin’?

53

It isn’t so much that you think it, but that you arrive at it through poor logic. Well, and the fact that it is a pretty preposterous idea.

Do you have a cite in which Larry states that he wears a goatee with that impression in mind? Or is this something you are attributing?

Your logic seems to consist of “there are a bunch of people with this type of facial hair, therefore it must be a stereotype of that “type” of people.” You totally ignore the fact that there are just as many, or more, people that have goatees that don’t fall into that socio-economic class. Lets see, here are some non-“redneck”, non biker, non “mulleteer” goatees :

John Steinbeck- think he wore a mullet?
William Shakespeare: Ahh, talk about redneck, eh?
Denzel Washington: Wait a second… redneck?
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Sigmund Freud (sure, most of the time he wore a beard, but not always a full one)
The list could go on, from all times. Comparing the mullet, a relatively short lived fad with something people wore back in the early 1900’s as well as the 17th and 18th centuries is pretty rediculous. Saying those that wear them are red neck low lives is just as absurd.

I could ask you why you want so badly to think that goatees are the “new mullet,” and aren’t comfortable with the idea that goatees are just a beard, and have been around a long time. I don’t think that can be said about mullets.

The fact of the matter is that goatees just go well with shaved heads, having a clean and open face generally doesn’t seem as aesthetic as one with a goatee when ones head is shaved. The fact that shaved heads have increased in popularity is mainly due to the number of movie stars and singers that have theirs shaven. It becomes more and more of a common and accepted sight. Men that are thinning or balding feel that there is more acceptance of just shaving it all off because of that, and there is less of a “look at the strange monk like person with no hair on his head,” and more of a “oh look, another shaved head.” Which shouldn’t be any different than “Oh look, another ponytail”, or "another spikey hair cut, or oh look “another (insert popular type of hairstyle).”

The stereotype is in your head.

54

So, my husband, who is normally a shaved-head/goatee wearer (no he never had a mullet) got the bright idea of going for Halloween as Mr. Clean. He shaved the goat last night. And you know what? He does look like a thumb. :frowning: He’s growing the goatee right back, thank Og.

For most balding guys, I think the shaved head or at least the very short crew cut is the best look. What are they going to do–walk around looking like Charles Emerson Winchester, III? And the goatee does go well with the shaved head. The OP criticizes the look for being “ordinary.” But I don’t think that the people who wear this style are necessarily looking to be different, at least in this day and age when it is so common.

55

I tried mutton chops a few years ago in the waning days of college, mostly because I knew they would be a truly unique and original look. They also looked retarded.
I wear a goatee now because I’m fat, and I have a double chin to hide. I shave my head because I’m balding, and with my head shaved its less obvious.

56

He’d look every bit as much the redneck with a shaved face.

Both looks have social significance. If you see someone wearing a mullet, you think “he’s an uneducated NASCAR loving-redneck who didn’t finish high school and loves .38 Special.” Likely as not, a guy with a goatee is either a pretty average suburban dude who just isn’t a fashion trendsetter (that’s pretty much me), or a guy who wanted to spare himself the agony of going bald the slow way. When having a shaved head and a goatee comes to mean “this guy’s a moron,” I think that comparison might work. By which point I guess I’ll have grown my hair out longer. :wink:

57

I’ve now read the word goatee so many times that it’s starting to look silly.

In fact, my brain keeps slipping “goatse” in there.

Shaved Head and Goatse is not a combination I want to spend time thinking about. ::shiver::