SEPTEMBER 26TH, CHICAGO ILLINOIS
Seeking advice on what to do about 18 months of hair growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, local job seeker Graydon Collins found himself amused but without additional insight having searched “popular” social media site Reddit for “Men’s Hair” content.
“The search function on Reddit is notoriously bad, but it can usually lead you to a subreddit that at least has some kind of content tangentially related to what you’re looking for,” said Collins, 42. “The first result was way out of bounds, it seemed to be some kind of forum for guys that were in the music industry or wanted to be. We’re talking a bunch of users who’s hair was no shorter than their arms and most of the discussion focused on hot oil treatments, learning to live with the temperature and humidity changes you’d have to make in your dwelling to maximize your hair’s potential, and some kind of grudge the users were harboring against some other subreddit involving chemical treatments that peaked in popularity sometime around 2017 in Southeast Asia.”
Undeterred, Collins reported that he’d hoped the second suggested subreddit would be better suited to his interests.
“I still don’t know what all of that was about, but the second search result was /r/malehairadvice, and that sounded exactly like what I was looking for, at least at first.”
Collins proceeded to launch Internet Explorer and navigate to Reddit, turning his screen to our reporter to illustrate his points, notably browsing the website without logging in.
“The subreddit definitely seemed to be intended for men asking questions about hair care who were seeking advice on hair styles, but I hadn’t even made it onto the second page of posts before I realized that most of what was going on there was men asking about hair loss. That made sense at first glance, but then I looked closer and every guy asking was barely old enough to drink. Some of them were asking if their beards would come in before their hair fell out.”
At the time of publishing, Collins still hadn’t made any decisions about getting a haircut. When asked if he’d found a more suitable subreddit in which to seek advice, he seemed to have forgotten about the issue.
“I’ve been on Reddit for over a decade. If I’ve learned anything from that I’d be willing to share without the benefit of anonymity, it’s that any group of men with any insecurities cannot exist for more than eighteen months without becoming a target for radicalization. I kind of suspect that far-right troll accounts are going to start targeting the users on /r/malehairadvice, so I’ve been monitoring the comments for anyone claiming that male pattern baldness is caused by soy, jewish people, or immigration. So far it’s mostly just been people telling everyone who posts about their hairline to shave off all of their hair despite most of the posters just experiencing normal thinning for guys in their early twenties. Nobody has the same hairline at 25 that they had at 16.”
When asked about his findings, Collins worked to stifle laughter as he reached for a cup of coffee with a shaking hand. “Maybe the whole thing is an elaborate long-con to trick younger guys into shaving their heads. I know there was a time when the guys I grew up with and I would have thought that was one of the funniest things we could do on the internet… Now I just expect to hear about it Three years from now in a legal defense explaining how some kid I’m supposed to feel sorry for ended up building a bomb.”