by Doctor Science
Andrew Sullivan looks at Thoreau:
Despite his distaste for fashion, Thoreau did have some flair — if you could call it that. In the winter of 1855, Thoreau grew a neckbeard, which he claimed was for protection against “throat colds,” but also, he insisted, was quite popular with the ladies. Fellow author and Concord resident Louisa May Alcott reportedly pointed out the impossibility of this, mentioning to Emerson that Thoreau’s neckbeard “will most assuredly deflect amorous advances and preserve the man’s virtue in perpetuity.”
Thoreau wasn’t the only 19th-century male with this strange delusion: one of the first to come to my mind was John C. Calhoun, from his “crazy-eyed proto-Confederate” period:
But it wasn’t till I googled about that I found the greatest neckbeard-wearer of them all, Horace Greeley:
A *flowing* neckbeard, that’s really special and almost fascinating.
But what I don’t understand is why some men persist in wearing neckbeards *today*. The above gentlemen were bearding in the era of the aptly-named cut-throat razor, and I could see why someone with an unsteady or uncertain hand might decide to try a neckbeard instead of flirting with danger. Although I agree with Louisa May Alcott, the chances that this would help them flirt with *women* were no better than minute.
I surveyed the men I had handy, and they all agreed that neck-shaving isn’t difficult or risky at all with a safety razor, and it’s trivial with an electric razor. None of them could explain neckbeards, or the kind of growth some guys had in college: a beardless face, but with hair growing downward from the underside of the jaw — it always reminded me of algae or something growing beneath an overhang.
So, what do you male people here think about neckbeards? Do they make sense to you? If they were a fashion of sorts in the mid-19th century, could they come back again? What a horrible thought. Recount hilarious tales of facial hair mistakes of your youth, and point me to other notable neckbeards in history and art.
i used a straight (i.e., cut-throat) razor for a while in my youth. it was an affectation, and true to my nature an especially pointless and unnecessary one.
i can understand why folks who lived in the days of straight razors and no convenient access to hot water would grow a neckbeard.
back in the hippie days, wearing your hair or beard in ways that echoed the practices of the 19th C was kind of an artful or notional reference to an earlier, agrarian time, before The Man had made us all his underlings via institutions like the corporation or the military.
is the current-day neck beard kind of like that? or is something else going on?
i’m too old to read these kind of tea leaves anymore…
i do have one very good friend, no longer all that young, who is in the habit of rearranging both his facial hair and the hair on his head in unusual ways, but in his case his hair is just one more canvas on which to ply his creative imagination.
his apartment looks like a cross between willie wonka’s chocolate factory and a spanish bordello, all as imagined by red grooms.
I’ve got a beard, and the ‘neckbeard’ thing drives me nuts, personally. Not on other people, but when the hair on the neck gets long, it drives me to distraction. One of the reasons I have a beard is that I hate to shave, so it is only when that hair gets too long that I notice it, and then I have to get some clippers to get it down to a shavable length and then I have to shave. Cannot imagine actually growing one on purpose.
Perhaps the men with neckbeards think it looks like a lion’s mane?
Wagner also sported a neckbeard.
It’s not the most auspicious of lists – and Calhoun always brings to mind the result of some weird genetic experiment crossing Charlton Heston with one of the apes from the eponymous Planet.
Greeley’s neckbeard is indeed splendid, but it pales in comparison with that of inventor and third-party presidential candidate Peter Cooper
Never had one of those; In my college days I had a “cough drop” beard, the sort that keeps your face warm, (Essential in the frozen north, I attended MTU.) and serves as a practical place to store pens and pencils between classes. (I was never under any delusion it appealed to women.)
An amusing story: My mother at this time was developing cataracts, and was in denial about how bad her vision was getting. So, home on break one day, I shaved the beard off on one side of my face, and went about clean shaven on the right, and full beard on the left. That evening I asked her if she noticed anything unusual about me, and she said she didn’t. I then pointed out the beard, she leaned in for a close look, and the next day she called to schedule the surgery.
Brett:
Your story about your mother takes the cake.
It’s possible that, like her cataracts, the neckbeard kind of sneaks up on guys — they think it covers up a double chin, and then get used to it.
And I’ve just been reminded of the most famous neckbearder of them all:
Roman Emperor Nero.
“fashion” explains a great many follies of appearance and deportment.
Neckbeards are unattractive to my eye, but so are most tattoos. Neckbeards at least have the advantage that they’re not painful.
Unlike, say, high heels, which in many cases deform women’s feet and cause long-term skeletal damage; yet “fashion” is more important.
You fail to mention a virtue of neckbeards over both of those other fashions: any unpleasantry arising from a neckbeard can be undone almost instantly by the beardee, alone with no specialized equipment, and with no permanent damage done (well, except perhaps to their social life).
Yeah, neckbeards look, to us, rather silly. “Us” being, let us not forget, a generation where a large number of people are getting tattoos, and no small number having pieces of steel inserted into their skin.
In context, we’ve got no basis for laughing.
I must say that, to some degree, I envy those for whom a beard, including a neckbeard, is a fashion statement. I have never worn one for one simple reason: it itches like blazes — and the neck is much the worst.
I have been assured, by those with a fondness for beards, that “it stops itching after a couple of days.” Well, maybe for others. But on the one occasion I attempted to grow one, it never stopped itching. Indeed, the itching got progressively worse. And I was stubborn enough to keep going for a couple of months.
I will occasionally skip shaving for one day. But beyond that, it becomes unbearable.
So enjoy your options, guys. Some of us live in a different place.
I share wj’s experience there. With me there is the additional problem of a rather sensitive skin. Daily shaves are a no-no because I always look brick-coloured afterwards but the same happens when I sweat under the beard. So, it’s alaways a balancing act when the shave results will not outdo anymore the not-shave results.
Neckbeards look wildly uncomfortable to me.
So, echoing Brett, do various piercings. And don’t get me started on tattoos.
I’ve worn facial hair in various configurations since 1964, except for my first six months or so in the army (after which I was allowed to restore my mustache) and a few months in 1992 (?) when I shaved it all off just to see what I looked like underneath (SPOILER ALERT: I looked like my brother).
During this near half-century I have *never* had a “neckbeard,” did not realize there was such a thing, and have no idea whatsoever why anyone would grow one. The neck is comparatively easy to shave (compared with, e.g., the chin) and you can get away with doing only about every third day; I don’t much care for the feel of hair on my neck (unlike my face, which is fine); and IMHO it is unsightly. To each his own, of course, but I see this as an idea whose time never should have come and probably never will again.
My various candidate beard-bearing areas tend to sport growth that resembles hair loss due to radiation sickness as oppposed to a luxurious lion’s mane, so I am a frequent shaver.
I don’t care how other people wear their hair. I don’t get the soul patch, either. It’s not for me.
I have known guys that can grow dense fur coats on their faces, necks and indeed most of their body surface. For a while I envied them, but then I realized this one guy who could grow a beard in a matter of a few days had to shave from the bottom of his beard to the bottom of his neck all the way around his head, every day, or it would all just blend in with the rest of his pelt. This is a guy who sometimes blow-dried his chest hair so that his shirt wouldn’t get damp.
Another guy I knew had a beard that would go almost all the way up to his eyes.
Maybe this is all me going through contortions to be happy with what I have, though.
Neckbeardage is a badge of the hardcore OSS fan. If you run linux on your desktop and contribute to open source projects, a neckbeard is a mark of being in the group.
For those abandonning beards due to the itch — you have to wash them like the rest of your hair. Apply shampoo and, especially, conditioner, and you should have a much easier time of it. YMMV ofc.
(I am, somewhat sad that this is heretofore probably the most valuable comment I’ve made here in many years of largely-lurking)
Excellent Louisa May Alcott burn.
I had seen that Calhoun picture many times, though in smaller, less clear versions. I had never realized he had a beard. I had always thought it was either turkey neck or a scarf, since he was always sick. And his younger pictures were beardless.
Sumbitch was crazier than I thought.