Jim Carrey is doing it. Stephen Colbert had something going on in that last episode before The Late Show went on hiatus. My own husband, who couldn’t grow a full beard with Rogaine and Jason Mamoa’s mandible, is currently sporting a kind of adorable patchwork-type thing. A lot of men are responding to the coronavirus crisis by swapping their ordinarily clean-shaven visages for scraggly quarantine beards.
But why?
Is it because extreme times call for extreme grooming decisions? (We’ve all seen Mad Max.)
Is it because the beard is a calendar, measuring time like tick marks on the wall of a prison cell?
Is it because beards are cozy and warm and don’t require a lot of effort? Because they’re the sweatpants of the face?
In an informal survey on social media, many of my male friends told me they’ve at least partially altered their grooming habits since the onset of isolation. Growing a full beard, skipping the beard trim but keeping up with the ’stache, letting carefully trimmed edges run wild, or going whole-hog in-country SEAL Team 6. Some said they just didn’t like shaving or were using this time to test out alternative beard looks they’d been curious about. Some hoped to please a significant other who preferred a facial hair style not sanctioned by work.
So, what if you’ve decided to eschew the traditionally masculine, aggressive-looking beard and opted instead for a skinny mustache or mutton chops? It’s the same type of response. When work and social identity is disrupted, you can, temporarily at least, be anything you want.
