Got it in one. There’s only so much you can do with the human body, vis-a-vis fashion and grooming. So looks tend to cycle in and out of fashion. Plus, each new iteration likes to react to the one before. So the long, shaggy hair of the hippies was a rebellion against the conservative IBM cuts of the Fifties and Sixties, and in turn was rebelled against by the long-but-highly-styled hair of the Seventies, which gave way to punk hair, then shaved heads. Now we’re seeing the Don Draper look come back, but matched with neo-Edwardian long beards and curled mustaches (the “I listen to bands so obscure they don’t even exist yet” hipster look). It has ever been thus.
I agree. High-and-tights make me think “Bob Haldeman called…”
Rimmer: You all think I’m a petty-minded bureaucratic nincompoop who delights in enforcing political regulations because he gets some kind of perverse pleasure out of it. And in many ways, you’re absolutely damn right! But that doesn’t alter the fact that the only we’re gonna down track Red Dwarf and get through this in one piece is with a sense of discipline, a sense of purpose, and wherever possible a sensible haircut.
Lister: [Feeling bored after Rimmer’s speech] I’m going back to bed.
Rimmer: Would it harm you to have hair like mine?
The Cat: I have got hair like yours. Just not on my head.
Rimmer: Well, I’m no stranger to the land of scoff. Perhaps you’d like to explain to me why it is that every major battle in history has been won by the side with the shortest haircut.
Kryten: Oh, surely not, sir!
Rimmer: Think about it! Why did the US cavalry beat the Indian nation? Short back and sides versus girly-hippie locks. The Cavaliers and the Roundheads, 1-0 to the pudding-basins. Vietnam, crew-cuts both sides, no score draw.
Kryten: Oh, for a really world-class psychiatrist!
Yeah, you’re right. I knew that statement was a bit clunky when I was typing it out. One’s hairstyle is an expression of one’s lifestyle and whether we acknowledge it or not is very much influenced by our taste in fashion.
I guess what I meant to say was that I’m not trying to make a statement with my hippie look. Actually, I’m far from being a hippie. Heck I bathe and my clothing is what one might call conservative or even preppy except when I’m chilling and wearing my band t-shirts. (Another pic, I’m fishing for compliments or an SD gf.) Anyway, just to add to what others have said, I have long hair because I hate haircuts and getting it cut right each month is sometimes hit or miss.
Btw, I do my own trimming after I found out I could do it myself…and do it better. I like the natural V-end where the middle is longer than the sides. No guy should have an even end trim.
Well dirty hippie, I’m a straight male but you can definitely pull off the long hair, all Asian guys seem to be able to pull off the look, they’ve always got good hair.
The short part I sorta get, depending on how you define short (as guys with great long hair seem to be rare), but neat? People have been rocking less neat styles for years now. Maybe there’s so on the edge trend for neat hair again–I haven’t kept up–but it’s nowhere near ubiquitous.
And since anecdotes about friend’s hair cuts mean little, here’s a current article showing all the same variations that have been popular for the last few years.
To be honest, that’s part of the reason I grew my hair out too. Going to the barber every month was a complete ballache that I don’t miss (having said that, I do need to go in for a tidy up - but then, it’s been six months since I last went!)
One thing I have learned since growing my hair out: It takes a lot more work than short hair. When I had short hair, I could wash it with anything and it would still look OK (shower gel? Fine, whatever) and it would take about thirty seconds to sort out in the morning (get hair wet, run my fingers through it, good to go). Now I have to be picky about what I use to wash my hair with (I’m currently experimenting with different conditioners) and it takes a good couple of minutes in the morning to even get it to ‘not ridiculous’. Looking good, for going out or whatever, can take ten minutes or more.
So if you think of someone as lazy just because they’ve got long hair, remember: they probably put a lot more effort into their hair than you do!
Actually, I find that I spend more time on my hair when it’s short and has to be blow-dried into a style. (I wore a long, angled bob for a little while. It looked cute, but I had to use gallons of product and had to style it daily.)
It takes more time to do up my hair fancy, but I can have normal day-to-day waves in the same amount of time as doing my bob took. I just put my hair into a topknot (bun) at night, brush it out in the morning. In the summer, I only blow-dry the bangs.
YMMV, of course.
Bonus of long hair: it irritates the CRAP out of my dad and stepmother! They think that it’s 1958 and that I should have a more “professional” and “controlled” and “styled” hairstyle. They also have said that I’m “too old” for long hair (I’m 45 and have full, wavy hair). It irritates the shit out of them that I wear it halfway down my back.
I guess it’s the female version of the question asked by the OP
Nice try, but you don’t know shit about me or my history, so your comments are meaningless. I’ll bet that at some time in my adult life, my hair was quite a bit longer than yours. I also was there during the Age of Hippies*. I doubt you were.
*- I don’t remember a whole lot of it, which proves my point.
I have long beautiful luxuriant hair myself … so I’m walking down the Las Vegas strip and some midwesterners stop there on the sidewalk just outside Harrah’s, “Hey, you want to smoke some pot?”. They got really excited about smoking some of their weed with an authentic hippie … taking pictures and everything … pretty crappy stuff though, half ditch-weed I imagine.
Oh, yeah, West Coast boy here … through and through
So you probably also set the standard 1/2 inch off to ensure a cut every 3 weeks. I always request an inch off to go 2 months between cuts, but every time they mention 1/2 inch off per “your instructions” in their computer. :dubious:
That’s funny- Abraham Lincoln’s hair looks pretty short. And does Andrew Johnson’s, General Grant’s, James Buchanan’s, and pretty much all the presidents prior to that until you get to the long wig-guys. Franklin Pierce’s hair is pretty sexy, though- is that considered “long”? It doesn’t reach his chin or flow down his back or anything. And after Lincoln, all the US presidents continue to keep their hair short, up through the 1960s and beyond. In old civil war photos, there are lot of long beards, but the hair on the soldiers and officers doesn’t seem especially long. Andrew Jackson had wavy woodpecker hair, but again, it doesn’t reach his chin. I wouldn’t call hair “long” on a man until it at least reaches his shoulders, maybe his chin if I’m feeling generous.
justjake, it may have already been pointed out, but if people are telling you to trim the ends, it’s not because your hair looks fabulous. I would guess they can see split ends and breakage that you don’t. They aren’t telling you to cut it all off, right? They are saying yes, keep the long hair, but trim it to keep it healthy. Split ends are not a fabulous look on anyone.
I’ve had long hair for most of my life. For a few different pragmatic reasons I tried it short two or three times—for a couple years at a stretch—but it just never felt ‘right’. I don’t think I could ever get used to dyeing my hair either. I’m in a white collar profession, but since I work from home and avoid face-to-face with clients like the plague, it’s unlikely I’ll ever need to cut it short again. But if I do, it’s kind of far down on the list of things I won’t do–I’m kind of realistic about it.
What does the future hold? Well, here’s our five-year-old son. If the fashion cycles again in the next ten to twenty years, he’ll be all set.
