Bad news, bearded Bros: According to a new study, you’re never getting laid again.
A study of female sexual preferences out of the University of New South Wales claims males hitting “peak beard” in terms of overall attractiveness to females. The problem is that we — as a society — have played that shit out. Via Policy Mic:
A new study out of the University of New South Wales has revealed that largely due to its over-abundance, the reign of the hipster fashion beard is finally nearing its an end.
The research focused on the beard’s role in a man’s sex appeal, asserting that a bearded man’s attractiveness is directly proportional to how often beards are seen. The more people see beards, the less attractive they find them.
So how the hell does one conduct such a subjective study? If you’re like me, it sounds like the suspicious marketing bullshit razor companies put out to get men to spend $35 on a pack of four blades (that you have to ask for over the counter…. what a pain in the dick). Well, science and trend statistics, believe it or not:
The researchers showed over 1,500 people photographs of 36 men with varying degrees of facial hair (full beard, stubble, clean-shaven) and the participants ranked the bearded men according to attractiveness. The research found that people who saw more beards were less attracted to them.
What does it all mean? It means that beards are culturally everywhere, from billboards to Duck Dynasty stars to every single sports team that makes the playoffs. Because beards are the new norm, chicks think they’re less hot because all that scruff is all they see:
The study confirms the principle of “negative frequency-dependent selection” (NFD), which is that people are often attracted to what’s unusual. Beards were (for a moment) unusual. Now they’re not, and therefore they are less appealing.
Apparently this is the result of a 10-year beard trend basically coming to a close. Think about it: The mid-90s to 2006 was basically the heyday for the clean-shaven metrosexual trend (perhaps climaxing culturally with Entourage in 2004). When the gritty beard phase moved in as the ying-to-the-metrosexual’s yang, it was mostly in irony (or rejection) of looking like a 9-to-5 Office Space twat. Some people were deemed “hipsters,” while others — like those of us who grew beards outside of Brooklyn, Austin, and Portland — were less toolish about embracing our God-given right to bare manly-as-fuck facial hair. Time is a flat circle, nothing is the same under the sun. This is confirmed by a trend researcher Policy Mic talked to:
The trend of beards as fashion statements is now a decade old and as researcher Richard Brooks put it, “These trends usually move in 30-year cycles from when they are first noticed but, with the Internet, things are moving a lot faster.” A decade in Internet years is like 30-years in normal years, so it’s really just math that bears are coming to an end.
Ladies may dig your beard, but not for long. Good thing beauty is still in the eye of the beard-holder.
Brandon Wenerd just shaved his beard two weeks ago. James Franco’s barber had the honors. Follw him on Twitter –
It’s been a good run, Bros.