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Beards, Whiteness, and the Trump Card of Ironic

Nov 14, 2008 Print This Post

So I am a big fan of the site Stuff White People Like. That’s why I was excited when someone from Riv walked up, introduced himself and handed me a copy of the book version of Stuff White People Like “to borrow.” People hand me unsolicited books “to borrow” all the time (which is an interesting and hard to keep track of phenomena). I digress…

I was flipping through the book today and I was disappointed at the number of chapters that were straight from the site.

Then, I came across #95: Beards!


Here’s an excerpt:

Beards have been in fashion with white people since the dawn of white people. However, for research purposes, the modern white beard emerged at the same time as the modern white person: the 60′s.

Over the next twenty years the beard would be strongly adopted by both rock stars and professors. For a white person, these are two of the most respected professions, so the ability to resemble either is seen as a very desirable trait…

White males have had much social success in recent years, as their facial hair says, “Look at me. I am manly enough to grow this beard…”

All of this was wonderful stuff to read.

Until I hit this paragraph:

In fact, the only white person who can top a bearded male is a white person who has grown ironic facial hair. These are the elite. They grow mustaches in various guises to show that they are so out of style that they are actually cooler than you.

Dang it: