Terror Police were being frantically called with reports that a group of ISIS members were gathering at a remote castle in Sweden. The men were all wearing dark clothing, had very robust beards, and were supposedly raising the black flag of ISIS. However, when Sweden’s Terror Police actually showed up to investigate instead of a group of terrorists they found a bunch of neck-bearded hipsters, and that flag they were flying is actually the flag of their beard club known as the ‘Bearded Villains’.
As if it’s not already funny enough that a bunch of Swedish Neck Beards were mistaken for members of ISIS, the reason these hipsters were gathering at the castle is icing on the cake: they were there for a photoshoot for their beard club, the ‘Bearded Villains’. Police found a scene basically straight out of Zoolander, only instead of a ‘freak gasoline fight accident’ like in the movie the cops found 30 neck beards all dressed in black laughing, giggling, and doing whatever it is that Swedish hipster men do during a photoshoot. These guys…
Terror police in Sweden have been called to reports of a group of bearded men in dark clothes raising a black flag above a remote castle.
But instead of Isis militants, officers responding to the scene stumbled across a meeting of an international organization of beard aficionados.
The Swedish chapter of the “Bearded Villains” met on Saturday for a photo shoot at the ruined castle of Braehus, with members excited to be pictured with the organization’s black-and-white flag.
And while the group might have looked menacing from a distance, when they got closer police found around 30 young men hugging and laughing dressed in formal clothes, not militant garb.“After about an hour the police showed up,” he said. “They told us they got a call from someone driving past on the highway, saying that there were Isis terrorists at the ruins.
“The police saw of course that we weren’t terrorists, just very happy and nice bearded gentlemen,” he said.
Mr Fransson said it was “strange how people are so fast to react” to first appearances.
“We had a laugh with the police and they left,” he said. “It was a surreal experience.”
John Ekeblad, co-leader of the Swedish group, told Sweden’s Metro newspaper that while they laughed about the incident at the time, it highlighted the prejudices bearded men can face.
Here’s footage of the neck beard hipster photoshoot at the Swedish castle:
What an amazing world we live in, one where people can somehow mistake bearded hipsters for members of ISIS. Like, that’s how paranoid we’ve become as a society, that we can no longer just see a hipster for what he is. Instead we now see beards and dark clothing and assume it’s a terrorist. This is basically what happened to the trench coat after the Columbine shootings. If someone wore a trench coat s/he were automatically assumed to be a potential threat, and now it’s happening to beards…
For more on this story follow that link above to the UK’s independent!