But THAT is what I don’t get – if no style is the style, why gel? Why not just let it do what it’ll do?
JRD (who hasn’t applied “product” to his hair since the 1970s)
Because it takes a lot of time, effort, hair products and love to get your hair looking like you have just woken up! Seriousley though the ‘messed up’ look is more than just looking like you have just woken up, if my hair looked like it does after half a pot of wax, about 20 minutes and a costly trip to the salon when I woke up i’d save myself a fortune.
Messed up hair apparently is important enough to make up for most inadequacies elsewhere because this guy has got nuthin’ else to offer other than the frump.
Now that is messed up, as in freakishly horrible.
I see, so it’s a postmodern anti-irony sort of thing. Like “distressed” furniture, pre-faded jeans, and well-off politicians who have been Rhodes scholars or Yale/Harvard grads pretending to be good ol’ boys from small-town America. Gotcha.
You’re wrong here. 
From 1946-1964 there was a baby boom in the U.S. From the return of the WWII soldiers through the prosperous 1950’s, the birthrate was unusually high. This social phenomenon was noted as early as the 1940’s and was the subject of magazine articles, etc. Over time, the children born during this baby boom grew up and formed a bubble in American society. For a while, there would be enormous numbers of elementary school age kids, which gave way to enormous numbers of high school kids, and ultimately to enormous numbers of college kids in the 1960’s. These kids, whose culture, political activism, and fashion sense helped mold the '60’s as we know them, were called the Baby Boomers. Since there were so many of them, they tended to dominate social discourse (they are now around 50 years old, and are still very visible).
From 1965-1975, there was a baby bust. Fewer babies born, a smaller generation. As these kids got older, they felt overwhelmed by the Baby Boomer generation that had preceded them, and wanted their own identity. The term “Generation X”, possibly derived from sociological studies, a book of that name, and I believe a band of that name, refers to this generation.
Eventually, of course, the kids born after Generation X started growing up and wanting their own name, so, following Gen X, they became Gen Y.
The dates for Baby Boomers are well established, while the dates for Gen X and Gen Y are in dispute because they don’t correlate as clearly to a major change in birthrate.
Short version of this post:
Gen X: born 1965-1975
Gen Y: born 1976-1981?
When I saw the title of the OP, I knew that sooner or later someone was going to bring up Clay Aiken.
I put gel on my hair (not a lot but some) because I am cursed with pouffy hair. Not curly, not straight, but pouffy.