“I Wish I Could Grow a Full Beard”: The Amateur Pogonotropher on the Beardbrand YouTube Channel

Introduction

I have a full beard for the first time in my life. Following more than 2 years of growth, my beard now measures seven inches in length. It is full and all white in color. If I had a dime for every time I heard a Santa Claus reference, I could quit my job and move to a much more desirable climate. I never gave very much thought to growing a beard and did not grow it to follow the current trend. Truth be told, my former spouse loathed beards (I was clean shaven when we were married). When she informed me that she would be divorcing me (which was a surprise), I decided to stop shaving. Call it a benign act of hairy defiance. I also enjoy the privilege as a tenured professor to wear a beard, free from employer restrictions on facial hair. Furthermore, many of the sociological forefathers wore long full beards—Marx, Weber, and Durkheim among others—so, as a sociologist myself, and in homage to these bearded sociologists of yesteryear, I figured I would give it a try and let it grow. And it did.

I discovered the longer that my beard grew, the more I started to notice other bearded men. I found this experience akin to getting a new car whereupon you seem to observe, like never before, others driving the exact same model. The longer my beard grew, the more it seemed that strangers—mostly other men in various social situations—would provide unsolicited approval in the form of verbal compliments—bearded cat calls of sorts—or blatant gestures, such as an affirmative thumbs-up while pointing at my face. Other times, men both with and without facial hair would randomly approach me to discuss beards, sometimes soliciting my personal advice and suggestions on how to grow a full beard. At times, I felt like I had unwittingly become a member of some beard cult. ¹

More times than I can count, men have acknowledged their beard envy to me. Men and women have asked whether they could touch my beard. Although I have found such requests odd, I usually would oblige. Although less common, my beard has been touched on a few occasions without any warning and without my consent. I have discussed these experiences with colleagues, including those with children, sarcastically suggesting that this must be the male equivalent of being pregnant when strangers feel it necessary to touch a pregnant belly without permission. Agreement and laughter often ensued.

More recently, I was in a breakfast establishment in Minnesota waiting in line for a coffee. A bearded man in line and I started chatting about beards. His beard was longer than mine. Perhaps expressing a little beard envy myself, I asked how long he had been growing his beard. He paused and then said, “about 6 months,” and then quickly quipped, “There’s a trick to it.” When I inquired about his “trick”—as I suspected he had hoped I would—he leaned in real close to me and whispered, “You have to eat a lot of pussy.” I was admittedly taken aback, as such vulgarity was something that I had never expected to hear uttered from a random stranger early in the morning in public, no less, while waiting for a coffee. But I thought, this was Trump’s America, after all. So it goes. Nevertheless, this short story, albeit crude, is just one of numerous examples of random conversations about beards that I have found myself a part of for no real reason other than that I have hair on my face. All these experiences have peaked my interest in and curiosity about beards. Were other bearded men having similar conversations, I wondered?

Growing and wearing a beard, should one have the genetic disposition, is quite literally a solitary action that happens on one’s own face. However, symbolic meanings attributed to beards are, of course, social. Facial hair, the beard, along with its numerous manifestations, has been subject to social, cultural, political, and religious interpretations for as long as societies have existed. Historically, the popularity of beards has waxed and waned as briefly outlined in the section that follows. The contemporary beard trend appears to have had an upswing sometime in 2012 to 2013 (Hall, 2018). Notably,

The current beard trend is different from the previous ones. It isn’t tied to a specific generation or counter-culture, and there is an entire industry of beard-grooming product that is quickly growing. (Hall, 2018, emphasis added)

The beard industry, in terms of the marketing and sale of beard products such as oils, waxes, and balms, is more recent. Consider, for instance, that in the early 1970s there existed “only one brand [of moustache wax for sale] on the market” (Grosswirth, 1971, p. 106). Nevertheless, the use of beard oils and perfumes dates back to ancient Mesopotamian civilizations (Oldstone-Moore, 2016; Peterkin, 2001). A more recent and underexplored development, unlike all beard-related trends across time and across civilizations, is that anyone today interested in beards can interact and learn about beards from others across social, cultural, and religious boundaries on social media platforms, where users regularly share content on everything and anything beard-related, from styling techniques to advice on how to grow a beard. Social media sites such as YouTube play a vital and much less understood role in the development and facilitation of contemporary beard culture.

YouTube is a video-sharing social media platform that is one of the most popular sites online. A “participatory culture” exists on YouTube. Jenkins (2006) defines participatory culture as “culture in which fans and other consumers are invited to actively participate in the creation and circulation of new content” (p. 290). Furthermore, “[i]n a participatory culture, the entire community takes on some responsibility for helping newbies find their way” (p. 178). Burgess and Green (2009) recognize YouTube as a unique platform for a flourishing participatory culture, a space where users can upload videos and audiences can engage with others around user-generated videos (e.g., see Schneider, 2016). Participatory culture on YouTube involves a range of activities that collectively enable the creation of cultural meanings through interaction and learning from others (see Chau, 2010). Given the gap in the research literature on participatory culture and beards, I explore the following two research questions: What sorts of content do users circulate about beards on YouTube? And how does this content contribute to how users interact and learn about beards?

The Literature on Beards

The literature on beards falls thematically into two general categories. First, scholarly works, mostly comprising historical monographs exclusive to the beard, research on perceptions of the beard, and academic studies that do not focus exclusively on the beard but, nevertheless, do address it. Second, popular works, including various self-help literature, usually offered in the form of grooming and styling advice. I review these materials briefly below.

There is a long and full history of beards. Although much has been speculated and said about beards, including why they grow, what they mean and to whom, and who wears them and why, only a handful of scholarly monographs have devoted attention to the subject (e.g., see Peterkin, 2001; Reynolds, 1976; and most meticulously, Oldstone-Moore, 2016). Other manuscripts devoted to beards, such as an 1845 72-page Victorian era manifesto by Thomas S. Gowing published as The Philosophy of Beards, mostly provide fodder for beard enthusiasts. At the conclusion of what was originally a lecture delivered by Gowing himself, by his own admission for “both amusement and information” (p. xi), he asserts to have “offered proofs” for the beard as “a natural feature of the male face, and designed by Providence for distinction, protection, and ornament” (p. 72). Others have offered short accounts and some observations about beards in their scholarship, even though the corpus of this work is not devoted to the beard itself. Perhaps, most famous was Charles Darwin (1871), who theorized the male beard as a plausible evolutionary ornament, intended to attract (females) or to intimidate (rival males). In the last half century, dozens of academic studies have tested perceptions of the male beard as an ornament (for a concise review of these works, see Oldstone-Moore, 2016).

A cursory review of the aforementioned studies leads one to conclude that the function and purpose of the beard has been, and continues to remain, the focus of considerable debate. There is a general consensus, however, across these works that hair that covers the human face is a recognized secondary sex characteristic associated with men, even though some women would occasionally wear or, in rare occasions, grow facial hair. A few historical examples of note include Hatshepsut (1507-1458 BC), the first female king of Egypt who at the time “was the only one in Egypt with a long [ornamental curved and thin chin strap] beard” (Oldstone-Moore, 2016, p. 29), and Madame Josephine Colfullia, referred to by some as “the original bearded lady,” who became famous as an exhibitioner for P. T. Barnum in the 1850s (Trainor, 2015). In the aforementioned circumstance, Madame Colfullia’s rare beard served to reinforce gender norms around hair growth, encouraging women to remove their hair to appear less masculine and encouraging men to grow hair to appear more masculine (Oldstone-Moore, 2016). Nevertheless, the beard is almost exclusively associated with the adult human male and “no other biological feature, apart from the genitals, would make him look more different than the adult female” (Morris, 2008, pp. 96-97).

Symbolic meanings associated with the human beard have existed in all of recorded history (see Oldstone-Moore, 2016; Peterkin, 2001). Empirically, we know the most about the Egyptians because they “fastidiously recorded their habits” (Peterkin, 2001, p. 17). Along with the masculine social status that came to be associated with the beard in Egyptian societies, the history of shaving—as a form of ritualized hair removal intended to symbolize purification and the divine—also emerged from Egyptian culture (Oldstone-Moore, 2016). Evidence reveals that some Egyptian kings would wear ornamental beards covering a clean-shaven face, depending on the social occasion. For instance, a beard was worn to symbolize warrior status or patriarchal authority, whereas a shaven face was suited to otherworldly purity associated with divinity. Various societies and cultures would reverse and modify the aforementioned beard associations over the centuries (Oldstone-Moore, 2016).

My task here is not to provide a robust literature review of these materials across time as this has been done quite thoroughly and extensively elsewhere. ² What can be said is that across societies, cultures, and centuries, what has remained certain is to wear a beard, or not, real or false, was always intended to “announce what sort of man one is” to others (Oldstone-Moore, 2016, p. 37). In other words, the human beard symbolizes a type of status. A contemporary status, in fact, so significant that an increasing number of men are paying as much as US$15,000 for a surgical beard transplant, a more recent trend in male enhancement procedures (Dalal, 2014). As a secondary sex characteristic associated with men, wearing a beard might just be the ultimate unmatched performance of masculinity because usually only men can grow beards and there is no equivalent female counterpart. Given that a clean-shaven face remains the social norm, a beard can be perceived as a masculine and personal statement, and also one not attached to employment. Consider, for instance, that in the United States, men “do not have the legal right to grow beards or mustaches as they choose” under employer regulations that prohibit facial hair (Oldstone-Moore, 2016, p. 1). Wearing a beard as a performance of masculinity is symbolic of professional and individual freedom from corporate control. In a secular society, a beard is suggestive of a man who is doing his own thing and beholden to no one other than himself.

A similar rebellious status is usually associated with the beard as an expression of individual autonomy across more recent countercultures. In the last half century, beards have been worn mostly by men outside of mainstream society. As examples, we might count hippie culture of the 1960s and 1970s, one-percenter motorcycle clubs such as the Hells Angels, and bearded musicians, artists, and academics. Consider a more recent and specific cultural example, the “lumbersexual.” The term was coined in late 2014 and is defined somewhat tongue-in-cheek by its creator as “someone who does not try much at all [and] has put great effort into explaining that it is NOT in fact a thing” (Puzak, 2014). The lumbersexual aesthetic consists of the carefully crafted look of a man who appears to live life as an outdoorsman (but doesn’t!) and not as a corporate shill. The lumbersexual wears flannel, boots, and quite often an unkempt beard as the distinguishing feature. The lumbersexual look is intended to symbolize the stereotypical lumberjack aesthetic.

As another cultural example, consider “bears” who, much like lumbersexuals, are “trying to become a certain stereotype” (Kampf, 2000, p. xiii). According to Ray Kampf (2000), author of The Bear Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Those Who Are Husky, Hairy, Homosexual, and Those Who Love ‘Em,

what truly defines a Bear are three things: Size, Hair, and being Gay, [and] there are those who would expand this list to include attributes such as friendliness, a flannel shirt, a good sense of humor, and knowing all the dialogue to Steel Magnolias. (pp. 2-3)

Research indicates that bears are comparatively more masculine than mainstream gay culture and that “despite physical differences” among these men in terms of size and hairiness, that most “subscribe to a shared identity” of authentic masculinity, consistent with naturally developing male bodies (Moskowitz, Turrubiates, Lozano, & Hajek, 2013, p. 775).

In addition to the academic literature and various contemporary sociocultural connotations detailing and signifying the social importance, status, and various meanings associated with human facial hair, there exists an ever-growing collection of grooming and styling books, webpages, blogs, and social media sites dedicated exclusively to the beard. Before the rapid expansion of the Internet in the late 1990s—followed by social media platforms in the early 2000s—books and other print materials such as newspapers or magazine articles were the primary mass media for sharing beard-related information with interested others, including, for example, how to grow a beard, grooming techniques, and numerous styles associated with beard hair.

As one thematic example, consider The Art of Growing a Beard by Marvin Grosswirth, originally published in 1971. The book begins with what we now might consider a somewhat comically short history ³ of beards, and the remainder of the book focuses on growth, grooming advice, and beard style tips. For instance, Grosswirth (1971) suggests, “asking your wife or girlfriend to lend you” her cosmetic eyebrow pencil “to fill in uneven spots” (p. 82), continuing “but use it sparingly. Draw very short, light lines that resemble the hair, then blend them in by rubbing gently with your finger tip. Remember, that such touch-ups should never be obvious” (p. 89). Such information, Grosswirth later reveals in his book, is based on his own personal experience.

A more contemporary thematic example is The Facial Hair Handbook by Jack Passion (2009). The book is written as both a “style guide and motivational treatise” for men developing their individual style to include a beard as a manly accessory (Passion, 2009, p. 12). Passion (2009) provides a plethora of detailed advice ranging from washing suggestions and products to style and technique. Passion became famous for having a beard, as a two-time (2007, 2009) World Beard and Mustache Champion, ⁴ establishing himself as a media personality and beard celebrity. Passion, sometimes referred to as the “first professional beardsman,” even starred in a short-lived reality cable television program called “Whisker Wars,” beginning in 2011 and lasting two seasons, and he was the subject of a 2012 short documentary about so-called “competitive beard growing.” As noted by Passion (2011) on August 5 in Season 1, Episode 1 of “Whisker Wars,”

I’ve gained this fame, if that’s what you want to call it, and I’m now moving to the next stage, which is turning that into profit. And that’s typically the move from amateur to professional. I’m coming out with products. Most notably The Facial Hair Handbook—it’s kind of like the cornerstone of my beard empire.

Passion is credited with drawing increased attention to the competitive “sport” known as “bearding,” which increased in popularity across the United States in 2009 (Galvan, 2014, p. 341; Olsen, 2009). Passion’s The Facial Hair Handbook is intended as a reference guide but, unlike the aforementioned literature and similar beard guides, the book is also linked directly to a beard-themed website (facialhairhandbook.com). Readers of The Facial Hair Handbook are encouraged in the book to visit the site “for updated tips, product reviews, and news about facial hairstyle and care” (Passion, 2009, p. 13). The site is currently inactive and, although not the first site of its kind, paved the way for amateur beardsmen to turn into professional beardsmen by generating profit on social media platforms, sometimes in the form of community-inspired beard clubs.

Social media platforms play an important but much less understood role in the manner in which participatory culture facilitates elements of contemporary beard culture. For instance, none of the extant research literature on beards has explored the role of social media in contributing to the development of the amateur beardsman—what we might understand as men interested in beards, not for the sake of generating profit. These notable gaps in the research literature provide an occasion to address the research questions posed above and offer insight into participatory beard culture on social media platforms. In what follows, I outline my methodology before turning to a discussion of my research findings.

Method

The approach to the study of any cultural phenomenon should involve an awareness of relevant information. Regarding conventional fieldwork, researcher awareness develops from immersion in a social setting but can also involve immersion in documents or ethnographic content analysis (ECA; Altheide & Schneider, 2013). Qualitative media analysis (QMA) is recognized as a distinct type of ECA. The analytical focus concerns the communication of meanings codified in documents (as products of media formats). A document is anything that can be recorded or retrieved for analysis, such as posts made on social media platforms (Altheide & Schneider, 2013). The goal of QMA is to identify meaningful patterns across select documents and to place these meanings in context.

Following the selection of a topic of investigation (i.e., beards), and prior to the identification of certain patterns in any collected data, the researcher must first select and become familiar with the information source such as a social media site (e.g., YouTube) and then immerse oneself in the source materials (i.e., searching YouTube). Personal experiences can also inform the researcher’s approach. Beards are more popular than ever. This observation, coupled with my personal experiences outlined at the beginning of this article, helped direct my attention and focus. An initial search of YouTube with the word “beard” returned more than four million results. To narrow the parameters of the massive volume of available data, a subsequent search of YouTube was filtered for “beard,” by “channel,” and by “view count.” The top returned result was the Beardbrand channel, the most popular on YouTube to feature beard-themed videos and content.

This discovery directed my attention to Beardbrand. Started in early 2012 as a blog, Beardbrand was later developed into a profit-generating YouTube channel. Founder Eric Bandholz initially created Beardbrand to “unite beardsmen and build a community” (Bandholz, 2018a). However, following a January 2013 New York Times article reporting on the dozens of available beard products, Bandholz—who was cited in the article as an expert beard blogger—leveraged the resultant publicity to help launch his Beardbrand grooming company (Bandholz, 2018a). Bandholz transformed from amateur to professional beardsman. In the fall of 2014, Bandholz appeared on the reality television program Shark Tank, where he failed to convince a panel of investors to provide funding in exchange for a small stake in his company. In spite of securing no funding from Shark Tank, Beardbrand purportedly makes more than US$120,000 a month (Bandholz, 2018b).

The very first Beardbrand video was uploaded on February 8, 2012. At the time of data collection, the channel had 597,176 subscribers and 647 videos. Bandholz and his Beardbrand representatives often used gender-neutral terms such as “partner” in reference to the imagined romantic partners of their beard enthusiast audience members; however, the content on the channel seemed to cater largely to a following of heterosexual men. While reliable viewer demographics in support of this claim were unavailable at the time of data collection, as anecdotal evidence, we could perhaps consider that just a handful of posts were from users who self-identified as gay men and women. Furthermore, Beardbrand made an effort to inform their presumably heterosexual audience members about beards in gay culture in their 2016 video, “Gay Bear Life” (in gay culture a bear is usually a man who is larger and hairier, as noted previously). In “Gay Bear Life,” Bandholz affirms, “there’s a whole community of gay guys out there who either have beards or they rock the bearded lifestyle,” asserting that, “bears even have clubs,” which at the very least seems to suggest that Beardbrand is not explicitly catering to these gay community members themselves.

An initial review of these videos revealed that although Beardbrand launched as a beard-themed video channel, it has since shifted, as stated on its YouTube account, into a “network of support promoting growth in every aspect of a man’s life.” Video vignettes championing men’s hairstyles and videos of men receiving haircuts are now a common occurrence on the channel. Other miscellaneous videos included how and why to shave your armpits, trimming your nose hairs, advice about getting tattoos, and how to start a vinyl record collection. The extraneous nature of these and other similar videos not related directly to beards helped provide a conceptual rationale for data collection. User comments made to all videos with the word “beard” and related derivations (e.g., “bearded”) in the title of the video were reviewed and then collected for analysis beginning with the first video posted February 8, 2012, until January 1, 2018. A total of 310 videos met these sampling criteria.

Collection of these data occurred over a period of 3 weeks beginning March 22, 2018, until April 12, 2018. During the data collection phase, I watched each of the 310 videos that met the above sampling criteria. The length of these videos ranged from less than a minute to just more than 1 hr with most lasting less than 10 min. Following each video viewing, I scrolled down each individual page to open and view the posted comments. All comments were then saved as individual portable document format (PDF) files. User posts made to videos ranged from as few as four to as many as 2,006. Collecting these user data in this manner, although arduous, allowed me to read all the user comments over the 3-week collection period. Immersion in these data also allowed for the inductive construction of themes over the 3-week period. The data collection process netted a total of 62,061 comments. These individual 310 PDF data files were then combined into a single 8,957-page PDF data set for additional careful reading, review, and further analysis. Researcher interaction with large user-generated data sets can aid in the quest for locating qualitative nuances, such as subtle changes in discourse that may occur across thousands of social media posts or over a series of years (for more on how to organize and deal qualitatively with large data sets gathered from social media, see Schneider, 2018; see also, Altheide & Schneider, 2013, pp. 103-114). Prolonged interaction with large data sets also assists with progressive theoretical sampling, a procedure that involves a sample that is drawn from the emerging understanding of a specific topic. This type of sampling ensures that the full range of materials is included for review and analysis. “The idea is to select materials for conceptually or theoretically relevant reasons” (Altheide & Schneider, 2013, p. 56).

Having a familiarity with the research literature on beards, outlined briefly above, I approached the data seeking to locate themes not necessarily represented in the existent literature and themes beyond those such as masculinity or religion, as these are explored in great detail in the research literature. Having immersed myself in the data for 3 weeks during the data collection phase also helped me discover useful search terms to aid with further review of the data set. These terms were entered into the 8,957-page PDF data set. The integration of data materials relies on the researcher’s identification of meanings and contexts contained in documents. As Altheide and Schneider (2013) note,

Qualitative data analysis is not about coding or counting, although these activities can be useful in some parts of fulfilling the goals of the quest for meaning and theoretical integration . . . The goal is to understand the process, to see the process in the types and meanings of the documents under investigation, and to be able to associate the documents with conceptual and theoretical issues. This occurs as the researcher interacts with the document. [Therefore] it is best to rely on the more straightforward “search-find-replace” options on most word processing programs. (p. 70)

As one example, consider “yeard,” or a yearlong beard growth, a term associated with contemporary beard culture, and a word previously unknown to me (discussed below). The word appeared 887 times across the data producing 58 pages of aggregated data for additional review. QMA seeks to stress relevant categories. As such, when examining user posts (as units of analysis), the researcher needs to delineate what is emphasized in each theoretically relevant posting. Doing so helps to better ascertain specific key terms associated with themes and emphasis; and, although word counts can certainly be beneficial, limiting oneself strictly to word frequency might result in valuable missed data. Initial analysis of words helps with further clarification of common principles shared across user commentary including how concepts come to be regularly associated with additional data materials. For instance, the concept of the yeard was also discussed in user posts where the word yeard itself did not actually appear. In many of these circumstances, the word yeard was featured in the title of several Beardbrand videos, and it was in these contexts in which users discussed beard growth in terms of a 1-year time frame, rather than say a week or a month. Searches of these data materials helped focus additional attention on these instances as a way to identify stressed topics such as the yeard.

Careful and continued reviewing and sorting of these data allowed for locating and investigating key comparisons between concepts (such as the yeard), other categories and other discovered terms, words, and phrases to be checked back against the data set until no new categories, terms, or topics were located. Conceptually and theoretically relevant data identified during the research process were categorized then into three themes that I discuss further in the findings.

Findings

The title and content of comments collected from Beardbrand videos focused on beards, collectively the frame. Frames focus on what will be discussed. In what follows, I present three basic and interrelated themes that were constructed from an analysis of user posts collected from the Beardbrand YouTube channel. Themes can be understood as general meanings or recurring typical theses that run across the corpus of collected data. The identification and analysis of user-generated themes provide a more nuanced understanding of the words and messages posted by users and, in relation to the aforementioned research questions, analysis of basic themes then gives insight into the sorts of content circulated by users and how such content contributes to user interaction about beards. Three identified and basic themes were the yeard quest, the ideal type, and how to beard for the beard grower.

Discussion and Conclusion

YouTube plays a lesser understood role in contemporary beard culture online. Examining comments posted on YouTube—although not generalizable—provides some empirical insight into the important role that social media now plays in facilitating user experiences related to beards and beard culture. For instance, the themes above help us better understand how users participate on social media to make sense of individual beard growth as well as drawing comparisons with others. Analysis of user postings also helps contribute to delineating distinctions between the so-called professional beardsmen and amateur beardsmen. I now return to the questions introduced at the outset of this article: What sorts of content do users circulate regarding beards on YouTube? And, how does this content contribute to how users interact and learn about beards?

The evidence provided here adds support to the literature regarding YouTube as a space for participatory culture where fans and consumers circulate content. We can also add an emergent category to fans and consumers—that of the user turned entrepreneur—that is, the professional beardsman. YouTube entrepreneurs like Eric Bandholz and his iconic bearded colleagues “help newbies find their way,” but do so specifically in the interests of the Beardbrand company. Work remains necessary to further understand developing interactions between fans, consumers, and fans turned entrepreneurs. Let me now return to the first question: What sorts of content do users circulate regarding beards on YouTube? We can answer this question in two ways.

First, the evidence illustrates that content circulated on YouTube can come from users turned entrepreneurs. Eric Bandholz started Beardbrand initially as a community of beard enthusiasts and then parlayed Beardbrand into a company. Business interests were found to drive content shared by Bandholz and his Beardbrand representatives. Second, evident across all three themes identified and explored in this article is the finding that Beardbrand-generated content had a very strong influence in determining what types of content was shared by users, as illustrated in their posts to the Beardbrand YouTube channel. For instance, although it was not clear whether or not Eric Bandholz coined and developed the “yeard” concept, it was clear in the examined data that Beardbrand representatives aggressively promoted the idea in video content and in their interactions with users. The manifest function of the yeard promoted by Beardbrand and supported in content circulated by users was a way for the amateur beardsman to demonstrate his individual autonomy as a man free from social constraints, such as workplace rules that prohibit beards. We can surmise that the latent function of the yeard was to keep users engaged with the Beardbrand channel in the form of subscriptions and video views where Eric Bandholz promoted the purchase of his products to users (as consumers) on their quest.

The second question concerned the matter of understanding cultural meanings as they developed through users’ interactions and learning about beards on YouTube. Shared thematic meanings expressed by users in their interactions with one another and with Beardbrand representatives concerned discussions and posts regarding what was thought to be the ideal beard type. Meanings were expressed in visual terms, usually by directly referencing the beards of specific men featured in Beardbrand videos and, less frequently, providing the names of bearded celebrities. Full- and thick-bearded men like those in Beardbrand videos assumed a self-proclaimed iconic status that was reinforced by users. Icons are symbols of things. A man with a full and thick beard is symbolic of having a particular masculine status. A key difference and finding herein that contributes to the research literature on the subject of beards and participatory culture is the interactive process through which genetic disposition as status is illustrated in user-generated content shared on YouTube. Learning about beard culture included discovering goals on YouTube (such as the yeard) and involved sharing tips and advice to achieve and maximize these goals in the form of an ideal beard. Collectively, these user actions across the Beardbrand channel and over the span of years helped create and promote shared meanings associated with beards. Although genetics were acknowledged by Beardbrand representatives and among users as the primary driver of beard growth, promoting and sharing advice about beards and beard growth in some ways serves as a user-generated mythology that largely benefits professional beardsman as entrepreneurs on YouTube. Future research might further explore the generation of beard mythology on social media platforms and how this mythology benefits entrepreneurs. Outcomes for those subscribers and viewers (i.e., amateur beardsmen) with the genetic disposition to grow a beard sometimes included the discovery of new grooming tips and products such as balms and oils that helped these users achieve their ideal looking beard.

Finally, although the beard might be recognized as a statement of the masculine man seemingly freed from the authoritarian vices of capitalism, profit-motivated companies such as Beardbrand that promote the bearded man as a manifestation of individual masculine autonomy so too ironically induce cultural conformity among their YouTube viewers and subscribers. The emergence of companies (and an entire industry of beard products) such as Beardbrand provides the context for an occasion to theorize social media platforms as a 21st-century version of the culture industry— an industry that is set in a mediated communication order, where the audience and content are often one in the same.

Adorno and Horkheimer (1944/1972) argue that products of the cultural industry (where previously a clear delineation could be drawn between the industry and consumer of content) such as music (see, for example, Adorno, 1941) serve only to replicate the sounds of the industry itself and, in so doing, music, in this circumstance, as an art form loses its aesthetic function. Similarly, in this regard, Beardbrand products, not only in the literal sense of oils, balms, and so forth, but also in their cultural products, including videos and interactions with users, act only to replicate the company and beard product industry. Subsequently, on the Beardbrand channel at the very least, in line with Adorno and Horkheimer’s reasoning, the beard loses its masculine function. Understandingly, this is a somewhat bold assertion intended to encourage future work that might theorize how the culture industry, in relation to beard culture and beyond, now manifests in user-generated spaces online.

Although this article contributes to a few preliminary understandings concerning the role of YouTube in fostering contemporary beard culture in online spaces, it merely trims the surface. In this regard, this article provides the basis for future application of QMA not only on YouTube but also on other social media sites where beard enthusiasts interact and learn. For example, future research might explore Facebook group pages catering to gay bear pogonophiles and how these spaces help foster contemporary nonheteronormative beard communities. Research might also look at other beard-themed YouTube channels, and compare and contrast the content to observe if similar themes hold across different channels. These data then might be contrasted against user-generated material collected from other social media platforms such as Instagram or Twitter. Finally, additional work is needed to explore how dominant themes in the beard research literature such as masculinity manifest on beard-themed social media platforms. This remains part of future writing on the subject.