Short on the sides, and long on top: the undercut; the Macklemore its the slicked-back hairstyle any Brooklyn barbershop worth its salt specializes in. In cities and blue states, we tend to associate guys who sport them as fashion-conscious urban hipsters who were closer to Ryan Gosling than Mel Gibson in ideology. They were popular with women who like their men culturally aware and with a progressive slant.
Not anymore. There were signs that the haircut was about to be problematic last year when The Washington Post ran a story about the way the Alt-Right had taken up that style renamed the fashy, as in fascist as their signature look. It picked up steam during the inauguration when white nationalists convened in Washington, D.C. to celebrate the new Trump presidency. But the coup de gras was the viral video of Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer getting punched in the head (twice!). Now, a haircut that was once associated with sensitive professionals has been appropriated by the conservative extremists, which has led many women who date white men to start swiping left, indiscriminately.
...
The undercut, as the haircut is widely known today, first cropped up in the Edwardian era and lasted throughout the 50s. It was the dominant mens style during much of the 20th century, particularly among working class communities. But the most infamous example of the haircut was that it became the distinguishing style among Wehrmacht officers in Nazi Germany, and teenage men the Hitler Youth who participated in paramilitary youth clubs.
But thats not why it became popular again in 2010. Its most recent reincarnation was probably due to Don Drapers neat hairstyle on Mad Men and Jimmy Darmodys slicked-back coif in Boardwalk Empire, two TV shows with protagonists who desperately want to be good men, but are weighed down by machismo and existential angst. People would ask for for that haircut, says Josh Boyd, cofounder of Blind Barber, the Brooklyn-based barbershop chain many credit with popularizing the undercut style in the early 2010s. [Theyd say,] I want the Michael Pitt. I want the Jimmy Darmody. That was the tipping point. His business partner Jeff Laub points to those cultural touchstones, and not the fascist origins, as their inspiration: In all honesty, we didnt know the exact reference of the undercut.
Primarily, the article is also detailing how this affecting social media/online dating culture for women as well.
For women who have spent time dating online, learning how to identify the possibility of unpleasant encounters before they happen is an important skill. There are a preponderance of stories that suggests that straight women spend a disproportionate amount of time deflecting and minimizing sexual harassment from straight men on dating apps, rather than establishing romantic connections. Additionally, The Pew Research Center found in a comprehensive study about online bullying that 1 in 4 young women aged 18 to 24 were the targets of online sexual harassment, and that young women are more likely to be stalked, sexually harassed, and suffer sustained harassment than their male peers or internet users in general.
Sometimes, its not worth delving deeper into a connection, when the consequences for misjudging can be annoying, embarrassing, or in some cases, dangerous. As a Black woman on Tinder, Im trying to mitigate any possible pitfall, considering we only have visual information to tell us what a person might be about. That haircut means something to me other than, my barber tries too hard, says Davis.
Of course, not all men with an undercut are Alt-Right, and not all neo-Nazis have an undercut. In fact, white supremacists have historically appropriated some of their most enduring iconography from non-whites like British skinheads with Jamaican rudeboys or German Nazis with the Indian swastika. But when women have limited tools for recognizing dangerous encounters, and the consequences of just talk to them to find out! can be unpleasant and demeaning; sometimes the only course of action is making a value judgment about a white guy with a trendy haircut, and not interacting in the first place.
But while it seems that while images of the fashy might be going viral online, it hasnt translated into haircut appointments, at least not in the same establishments where progressive urbanites get theirs. Blind Barber canvassed its barbers in Los Angeles, Manhattan, and Brooklyn and confirmed that they havent received any customers who deliberately want a fashy by name. No barber has heard the term before," insists Laub. "But if it was requested by name by a client, our barbers would ask them to get the fuck out of the chair. This is a stupid attempt at a hurtful rebrand of a popular haircut. "
http://www.refinery29.com/mens-hipster-undercut-haircut
Punch a nazi (again) if old.