Confession: I am incapable of growing anything that resembles uniform, cohesive facial hair. My face redirects all potential facial hair candidates to my back or the grapefruit sized patch in the middle of my chest. It’s like my puberty had A.D.H.D. or got in a fight and decided to sleep in separate rooms.
I’ve lived my entire adult life standing on the sidelines forcing a plastic smile while my friends participated in ‘No Shave November’ or grew playoff beards in conjunction with the championship runs of our native sports teams. “Matt, take our picture!” they would say enthusiastically, and as I open my iPhone camera already defaulted to ‘selfie mode,’ I have a brief few seconds to look at the small, sporadic clusters of hair growing in random areas of my face before the tears in my eyes eliminate any further embarrassment. My inadequacy has automatically defaulted me to that ‘picture-taking’ friend. And as we all know, the picture-taking friend is the yellow Starburst of the friend group.
So keeping it smooth is my only option. And I take it seriously. With the help of Schick Hydro and Edge Shave Gel, I’m able to exterminate those unruly patches to keep my face silky smooth and cut-free. The ladies absolutely love it. They just don’t know it yet.
My fascination with killer beards and ‘staches may stem from my inability to grow one. Kind of like my love for romantic comedies stems from me being incapable of loving anyone more than myself. So when attending Governor’s Ball on New York’s Randall’s Island over the weekend, I decided to approach complete and total strangers and ask to snap a picture of their elite beards and ‘staches. What I learned: Bros LOVE when you take pictures of of their chin curtains. They live for it.
Before checking out the 10 Best Beards of Gov Ball, you must remember that a beard is only as good as the person behind it. Saying a beard is just about the hair is like saying a car is just about the paint job. The man must control the beard, the beard musn’t ever take the reigns.
Without further ado:
Jesus, you could lose a marriage in that beard. A beard like this is a lot like a wedding: the brown hairs represent all the 20-something’s getting down on the dance floor and the sporadic white hairs signify those old-timers who haven’t lost a step. Nonetheless, everyone’s getting turnt up and that’s the beauty of it all. And repping the greatest country in the world on his chest is just a cherry on the wedding cake.
I sniffed out the man bun from about 5 kilometers away. Like you couldn’t not notice it. It was a festival landmark. My friends as I were like “ok I’ll go see Flume and you’ll see SBTRKT and we’ll meet back at the man bun in an hour. Ready, break!” I approached the man bun desperately hoping to see the lethal man bun-beard combo. I was not disappointed. And an old school Hakeem jersey? Game over.
I’m surprised this dude didn’t throw a haymaker at my dome for how close I took this picture to his face. I’m still cleaning hairs out of my phone case.
The Houdini stash with the Abe Lincoln beard is packing in to much celebrity power to not be included on this list. If your mustache escaped being buried alive and your beard freed the slaves, you are an automatic shoe-in for a top spot on my list.
This may have been my proudest snapshot. That outfit is just A+ stuff. Pretty sure I told him that like eight times, he must have thought I was hitting on him. And that’s usually the face girls make when I throw my best lines at them. “Uhhh ok.” I’m working on it, bros.
If you Googled “How do I Gov Ball?” I hope a picture of this dude pops up. Anyone who defeats an alien invasion on the hardwood and rocks a crumb catcher like that has a spot on my roster any day of the week.
The showmanship of these two were unparalleled. The dude had absolutely no idea what BroBible was but posed for me like he was going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. “Bro-Bye-Ble? Ok man, COOL!” No, man, YOU’RE the cool one. And from the looks of it, that lady tickler you got on your face may have been put to good use that night. You dawg, you.
The only reason I asked a picture of these two security guards’ beards was so they would stop shouting at us through those goddamn megaphones. We heard you 31 times, bros, we’re going as fast as we can.
BRO TIP: If your friend doesn’t have a ticket to a festival, go up to the beard-wearing security guard and ask for a picture of him. He will drop everything he’s doing and pose like he’s on the red carpet, giving a free lane to any interested. Could have snuck in a few kegs while these dudes were cheesin’ for this.
This dude was standing behind me for the entire Rudimental set with that exact same face. It would have been a lot more unsettling if the dude didn’t have that perfect ‘stache because if there’s one thing I know about mustaches, if you have one, you’re definitely not a creep. Or, it may be the other way around, not sure. I’ll get back to you guys on that one.
Håkan Wirenstrand from Swedish electronic band Little Dragon marks the only artist who cracked the list, shattering the stereotype that it’s impossible to hold a job with a chin curtain of that magnitude.
Cotton candy hair and James Harden beard is a creative one-two punch. Don’t know what the Salty Dawg is but I’m down to throw back a few steins there with this dude. Maybe talk some fishing, possibly get in a fist fight with the locals. The world is our oyster, bro.
Honorable Mention
Not enough preparation in the offseason. Tried to validate his lackluster beard by throwing on a gimmicky hat, but we sniffed out that the hair is in fact fake (See: hand yanking hair). This is cheating. If this dude comes back next year with a little more focus, he may have a shot at digging himself out of the pseudo-insulting “honorable mention” category.
There you have it, bros. If I missed any epic beards and/or lip sweaters, don’t hesitate to send them my way.