I’m not talking about any facial-hair style that includes a beard. I’m talking about these guys who have brought back the “just a moustache, and it’s a really ugly, really creeper-ish moustache” style.

You see this shit on influencers, pro sports players in every league, random motherfuckers working at Wal-Mart, random dudes out in public, professionals in all industries, and anywhere else you can think of. Just everywhere. It seems to cut across all social strata. I particularly see this shit on white dudes, but maybe a lot of Black, Latino, and Asian dudes are doing it, too, and I just haven’t noticed as much, because (I guess this could be controversial???) it just doesn’t look nearly as bad on those guys.

But these young white dudes, rocking the 1970s creepo 'stache really are everywhere AND I JUST DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND.

Guys, it’s fucking hideous. It looks good on NOBODY. Occasionally, you’ll see a guy with one of these, and he’s just so naturally, GQ-cover handsome that he powers through the debuff, and still looks okay. But that same guy would look EVEN BETTER if he didn’t have a horrible moustache.

Please stop. I don’t know if this is some kind of ironic thing, or if it started as an ironic thing, only to become normalized. But just please stop.

Especially stop, if you legit cannot grow a moustache. Either shave that shit or pair it with a beard of some description. Obviously, I’m an asshole for telling you what to do with your face, but as a middle-aged guy, I just feel like saying this shit, as advice if nothing else.

I remember when ugly-ass, creepy-ass moustaches were still in fashion, in the 1980s. They were awful and ugly. And then people regained their sanity. But then, somehow, that shit came back, about ten or twelve years ago. And that shit needs to be sent back to fashion hell.

  • @[email protected]
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    233 months ago

    A few years ago, I went into work with this mustache just because that’s what I was feeling that day. The next day, two of my coworkers did the same thing. It was me, I revived this trend. I’m sorry.

  • @[email protected]
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    173 months ago

    After some uncivil backlash when saying similar things about Mom-Jeans, I’ve been waiting ages for this:

    ‘We don’t do this for you. We do this for ourselves. It’s none of your business.’

    Damn, these easy replies feel great! They don’t lead anywhere and completely ignore the whole topic, but God damn, this feels good!

  • @[email protected]
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    153 months ago

    If we’re bagging on fashion trends can I throw in the aviator glasses resurrection? Combined with the porn 'staches and mullets it looks like the young people are cosplaying as my Dad in the 80s.

    Like Gen Z/Alpha are trolling Millennials/Xennials/Late Xers by dressing like middle-aged Boomers.

    • @[email protected]
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      43 months ago

      I feel targetted 🤣🤣 I have some big ass aviator style glasses, like I’m pretty sure the frame is for sunglasses, the true 70s style. My reasoning for it is pretty simple though:

      1. Smaller square glasses don’t cover my field of view. Its like playing with 55 FOV on an Ultrawide monitor.
      2. one of the only glasses style that can fit my IPD of 85 that are under $100.
      3. my grandpa has rocked that same style since he was a kid. I look a lot like him so it was a pretty natural fit.

      Overall loved em for years and will continue to rock them probably forever

    • @ChillDude69OP
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      3 months ago

      I can only ask you to take my word for it, when I say that I don’t give a shit about any other aspect of anyone’s appearance.

      I honestly think it’s about the era that I grew up in. I associate these clean-jaw-with-moustache guys with a particular kind of douchebag behavior. I don’t know what it was, but guys back in the '80s would rock this type of 'stache, as basically a red flag, applied directly to their faces.

      The just-a-moustache look says to me “I’m going to date your aunt, knock her up, and beat the shit out of her.” That sort of guy.

  • @[email protected]
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    93 months ago

    Ah, the classic “old person complaining about fashion trends among the youth”.

    Have you considered that there is nothing objectively hideous about these moustaches, and that the reason you think they are hideous is most likely due to associations and experiences that you have, but younger people don’t?

    I noticed that you called moustaches “creepy” multiple times. What’s up with that? What do you associate with moustaches that makes them creepy?

    And, if having a beard and a moustache is ok, why is having a moustache without a beard so bad?

    Honestly, you write that you are questioning Gen Z’s sanity, but your ranting doesn’t exactly make you sound sane yourself 😅

    • @ChillDude69OP
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      3 months ago

      Read through the thread. I’ve pretty much admitted to other people that I do associate these moustaches with creepy douchebags.

      They DEFINITELY used to be part of the creepy douchebag starter kit. They were like a red flag on a guy’s face. As I put it a couple times, that 'stache used to basically be like a guy holding a sign that said “I’m going to date your aunt, get her pregnant, and beat the shit out of her. And I keep my generic-brand cigarettes rolled up in my t-shirt sleeve. And at least 1/3 of everything that comes out of my mouth is an appallingly racist or sexist joke.”

      • @[email protected]
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        93 months ago

        Then you probably realize that the issue lies with you rather than all those young men.

        I’m pointing this out because all this reminds me of a situation I have been in a few times, where boomers and gen X-ers attacked me for being bald, as some of them associate being bald with being a nazi. Sorry ma’am, I’m just bald. If that makes you think I’m a nazi, that’s on you.

        • @ChillDude69OP
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          I might have felt like arguing further, but I’m also bald, so you’ve kinda hit me in my Achilles…uhhh…scalp. I’ve had the same thing happen, where weirdos thought I was a skinhead.

          It’s a really gross feeling, and it’s part of what made me stop shaving my remaining hair, and just go back to the “I have some of my hair, whatever” look.

          Thanks for being an intelligent, obviously literate member of your age group, by the way. I mean, Jesus Christ, you actually use commas. The moustache thing is an oddly specific complaint that I objectively never should have made. My real, legit, chilled-to-the-bone terror that I feel when I think about your age group comes from the fact that a lot of y’all LITERALLY CANNOT TYPE A WHOLE PARAGRAPH OF GRAMATICALLY CORRECT TEXT, IN YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE, EVEN IF YOUR LIVES ACTUALLY DEPENDED ON IT.

          And I mean, I’m given to understand that the younger kids who are just now graduating high school (or, rather, somehow being allowed to graduate, under entirely false pretenses) are literally, truly, actually illiterate.

          I have this awful feeling that I’m going to have to re-train as an engineer, so that I can help to run an electrical generation or water treatment plant, and work there until I am 130 years old, because the Tik-Tok generation is simply entirely useless and unable to assume that work.

  • @[email protected]
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    63 months ago

    There’s nothing new under the sun. In 5-10 years, it’ll be flannels and jncos, or maybe bell bottoms will be back. I agree that those mustaches and mullets are ugly, but nobody gives a fuck what I think, nor should they.

  • livus
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    63 months ago

    Judging by your instance name you should feel a bit more friendly towards the old “porn 'stache”.

    Seriously though, you’ll get used to it. I eventually got used to the millennial-led fashion for beards.

    Every generation wants to look hip to each other while simultaneously looking vaguely unsettling to older/uncooler people.

  • @[email protected]
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    53 months ago

    This is not a new Gen Z thing. It was a big deal with Millennials for a while and even with some Gen Xrs. Before that it was still the 80s and it was just normal facial hair.

    I think you’re taking it way too seriously. Every generation has numerous dumb fashion trends.

    • @[email protected]
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      43 months ago

      But OP is right, this was a bad fashion trend. It created lasting bad stereotypes. It was universally panned when it was being pushed away. Sure, you can rock whatever style choices suit you, but do you need to revive the bad ones? Did you learn nothing from our faux pas? There are so many more appealing retro looks you could have picked

      • @[email protected]
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        23 months ago

        do you need to revive the bad ones?

        “Good” and “bad” are subjective terms in general and especially so when it comes to trends and fashion. What one person thinks is a bad trend 100 other people will think is the greatest thing humanity has ever created. Every trend comes back around eventually because, lets face it, there are only so many ideas that ever get that widely accepted.

    • @ChillDude69OP
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      3 months ago

      Yeah, I guess. You make a good case. And I suppose it’ll be real extra awkward for these young fellas, who will have so many more pictures of all their fashion mistakes, forever hosted in the cloud. Their kids are going to roast them on a daily basis.

    • @ChillDude69OP
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      23 months ago

      To be fair, that criticism has applied to every currently living generation of Americans. Just with different dipping sauces.

  • fᵣₑfᵢ
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    43 months ago

    Do you have any examples? I haven’t really noticed these 'staches you’re referring to

    • @ChillDude69OP
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      53 months ago

      I’ll give you the exact guy that pushed me over the edge, and made me have to say this shit. Jake Oettinger, professional ice hockey goalie, with the Dallas Stars. 25 years of age. Here’s two pictures, one with a full beard and one with the awful 'stache that he sometimes wears. He sometimes goes clean-shaven, too. But I can’t be bothered to find a good pic of him that way. Anyway, here:

      • @[email protected]
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        83 months ago

        Holy shit that’s a stark difference.

        Dude went from normal whatever to PREDATOR driving a white windowless van.

        • @ChillDude69OP
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          33 months ago

          Right? It’s kinda mind-blowing. Although, now that I think about it even more closely, through a hockey lens, I think maybe I know where the trend started.

          Quite a few years back, people started doing this “Movember” (Moustache-November, I guess) thing. I’ve forgotten if it was supposed to be attached to some kind of cause, or something. Anyway, that was a big thing in at least some NHL teams. It was probably a big thing in a bunch of other places. And I wonder if it was something that encouraged some of these young dudes to grow a 'stache, for the first time.

          And then, as we’ve discussed in this thread already, the young fellas came up during the time period when the just-a-moustache look had completely died off, so they were never exposed to the negative stereotypes and associations that it has. So to them, it’s just a look they might adopt, on a whim.

          And then us old people give them grief about it. I guess that really is a dick move.

      • Teon
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        3 months ago

        The specific issue with this person is, hair color does not match mustache. And he is one of those people where facial hair looks bad on him.
        Way too many men (and some women) think they can get away with facial hair, they can’t. Not every person can rock every trend, it’s why we are individuals.
        I HATE facial hair on 99% of men. It’s always scraggly, sparse, not well maintained or cut into some weird ZZ Top or flat bottomed Groomsman hipster look from the 1860’s.
        And I am always shocked when a really hot dude hides his face behind a beard that makes him look like he was stranded on a deserted island for 10 years. Why would you hide that face???
        Same goes for hot bods, can your clothes get anymore unflattering?? Why even go to the gym.
        end rant - - -

  • @[email protected]
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    43 months ago

    15-20%? It’s less than 5% and I think I’m being generous there.

    I agree it looks weird though…

    • @ChillDude69OP
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      Yeah, I probably overestimated. But only because of the weirdness of the phenomenon. That moustache style had dropped to functionally zero percent of civilians, from about 1991 to 2014. And then suddenly it reemerged, in actually visible quantities. Like, overnight.

      I think this situation lives rent-free in my head, at least partially because I want to know if there’s some kind of ground-zero point, where the reemergence came from. Was it a specific celebrity? Maybe in a period movie role? Something like that?

      • @[email protected]
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        33 months ago

        It’s probably just like fashion. It’s all cyclical. One decade it’s gross, the next it’s cool and retro

        You’d think a pedo stache wouldn’t be cool or retro though lol

        • @ChillDude69OP
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          You’d think a pedo stache wouldn’t be cool or retro though lol

          My thoughts exactly. I guess the younger generation really just didn’t see enough of those moustaches to actually build up the association with creepy douchebags.

          Like I said to someone else in this thread, I see one of those moustaches and it’s like the guy holding a sign that says “I’m going to date your aunt, knock her up, and then beat the shit out of her. All while keeping a pack of gas-station-brand cigarettes constantly rolled up in my t-shirt sleeve.”

  • @[email protected]
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    32 months ago

    I am always confused seeing these on straight men. When I was younger it was a style, but only on gay men. I do not like the unopposed moustache either, on anyone but guess everyone should do whatever the fuck they want with their facial hair, they can laugh at themselves later, I’m sure we all do.

    But yes if I was the fashion police this would be a severe, felony level violation. Up there with the awful shapeless jumper dresses some women wear.

    • @ChillDude69OP
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      33 months ago

      Why do I have to point out the subverse that I’m posting in EVERY SINGLE TIME that I post an unpopular opinion?

      This is the place for unpopular opinions. It’s not the place to be chill.