I think the scientific name is “poop chute”.
My God! It’s full of stars!
Thanks for all the replies and ideas. They have been informative and amusing.
It would be easy to assume a group of ingrown hairs except for two things.
-
My beard hairs don’t grown 1/2 cm deep in my skin (or at least I don’t think they do).
-
I have looked at the “hair” under magnification, and it does not appear to be a “melded” grouping of hairs, it appears to be one solid piece.
These two parts confuse me. I could easily be wrong about both of them, so I really don’t know.
I am a (still at school) scientist, so I just did what was natural.
Speaking of gross, it would have been really gross if I pulled it out and it writhed around while making tiny little screams. I would definitely have been a little more concerned.
The same thing happened to me.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=153366&highlight=hair+follicle
It looks like an aglet. Too bad you pulled it, otherwise you could’ve grown your very own shoelace,
Aw, it’s not so bad. I mean, I don’t have an answer to the question, but I do find myself with the strong compulsion to go cook something involving cloves.
You are really cool. Please pay for subscription and stay with us. I think you’ll fit right in.
Demons
Happens all the time
But could you take pictures for us? Noooo… 
Is it bad that this thread kind of makes me want one of these so I can pull it out?
Heheh. I was thinking the same thing…you know…for science. 
I think you’re growing dreadlocks.
On your face.
My husband gets them now and again (he has curly hair) and I pull them out. I’m afraid that I tend to cackle a bit doing so. He also asks me what “this lump” is, and generallly it’s a zit, but no, he DOESN’T want me to remove it. I remove it anyway. Such are the privileges of married life. He’s also had a pilonidal cyst. Yuck. That’s part of married life, too.
I also admire the OP for taking and posting pics.
Yeah, they do; when I get these mutant whiskers, they’re sometimes quite hard to get a grip on with the tweezers and if my (reasonably dense) beard is slightly unshaven, I often accidentally pull out a few innocent whiskers before I get a lock on the mutant. I’m always a bit surprised at the depth to(from) which they were growing in the skin.
They also grow sort of diagnonally through your skin, which also enables them to be longer than they first appear.
That’s interesting, because it bears many similarities to this (where I think we perhaps gave the OP a bit of a rough ride, if this is indeed a confirmed medical phenomenon).
QtM sez ingrown hair, so- trust him. I have had the same thing, and it’s a weird sort of ingrown hair. Have you changed shaving methods recently?
BOOOO!
This reminds me of that other one where someone started pulling on a little black end coming out a pore and the hair inside just kept unravelling till it was inches long. Bleah.
So sorry, my deeply admired QtM - if it don’t kill ya, I know nertz about it.
Ya wanna talk hemorrhagic pancreatitis Rxed with alcohol?
Oh, no, wait, you already know about that.
Ingrown hairs fused together in a sebum coat? I got nothin’.
I would like to applaud the OP for the use of pictures.
I agree that they’re “fused” hairs; I have a few follicles under my arms that grow two or three hairs at the time. (I’ve never produced anything as impressive as the OP though.)
I just had to pop in and throw my support behind the use of pictures. They really make a TMI thread come alive, and I especially commend the OP for his use of the ruler. Simply magnificent! You must join immediately. If you can’t swing the membership fee, I’m certain that many of us will line up to do the honors for you.