I posted something last night about the worst haircut I’ve ever seen, complete with a cute little drawing to illustrate it. At about 6 pm, both BoingBoing and Gawker linked to it, increasing my traffic tenfold.

“Oh look,” I thought. “Everyone thinks I’m witty, brilliant and wonderful. It must be true if the Internet says so!”

Then I left work and got on the subway — and saw the owner of said haircut. I felt really, really bad. On the one hand, this guy was obviously seeking attention with his ‘do, and now he’s gotten it. But then again, taking cheap shots at strangers kind of sucks, I think, even if it does pay off in the dizzying sweet nectar of Internet attention.

When I got home, I saw this comment, which really made me think:

Style is a product of Risk Taking… & those of you who laugh @ people who take risks are simply too scared to be true inventors…

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Last weekend I saw a haircut ugly and evil enough to impregnate a nun just so it could kick her down a set of steep stairs. I’ve seen some stupid haircuts in my day, rocked more than a few regrettable ‘dos my damn self. My own hair in high school was shaven on the sides and back and semi-sorta-not-really-at-all long on the top in a ‘do that would have looked like a brain handle had I been able to pull it into a ponytail. I used to wonder why girls didn’t take me seriously.

I used to pour concrete with a man whose braided mullet hung low enough to tickle the tanned top third of his ever-exposed ass. I’ve seen cuts on the subway here in New York that I found personally offensive, hairdos whose cheeky chunkiness screamed of disposable income, willful ignorance and a powerfully asexual aesthetic retardation.

I live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where ironic commentary on the fashion choices of the American working class has collapsed in on itself warping into a white dwarf shaped like a Mobius strip: a one-sided form that slows down light and the passage of time so aggressively that silver tights underneath ’70s running shorts seem like a good idea.

But I have never seen any shit like this.

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Popularity: 16% [?]