Beards are alpha, ‘rat boys’ are in – and the rules of masculinity are still as baffling as ever | Tom Usher

BEars apparently aren’t as sexy as they used to be. You may have heard people talk about the “hot rodent boyfriend” – the conventionally handsome, high-combed, beardless skinny lads who all look like they could be “the sensitive one” in any boy band. With the likes of Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi in Saltburn , Jeremy Allen White in The Bear , and Timothée Chalamet (in all of them) starring as today’s screen heartthrobs, you may be wondering if the days when beards were synonymous with attractiveness are long gone.

It was only two years ago that journalists declared the beard to be the “trend that will never end,” and only five years ago we gave our opinion on how celebrities all look better with beardsBut recent research suggests that even if people are divided on whether beards are attractive or not, bearded men still consider courtship a measure of masculinity, as well as commitment in relationships.

Researchers at the University of Silesia in Poland and the University of Padua in Italy 400 men interviewed between the ages of 18 and 40, who wore a variety of facial hair, about their “social motivations.” These men were given brief descriptions of “life goals” (such as “staying with a partner for the long term” and “spending time with and helping parents and siblings”) to rate in terms of how much they valued them.

The researchers found that men with more facial hair placed a higher value on keeping long-term mates and providing for their families than clean-shaven guys. This led the study’s authors to conclude: “(Men with beards) are likely to exhibit the kind of prosocial ‘alpha’ behavior that helps women fall in love with them and other men trust or fear them.”

Might sound a bit far fetched, but hey, I’m just a bald guy with a beard (still waiting for my “BGWAB summer”). Which is why I’ve never really thought of my beard as saying anything directly about me, other than the fact that I just don’t feel like shaving right now (although every now and then I catch myself drinking an oat milk latte and wearing a Carhartt beanie with a North Face jacket and realizing that my beard heralds an impending gentrification apocalypse in the local area).

The complexity of beards today is so great that they can be anything from pejorative (neck beardsbearded hipster) to elevated (alpha male), while the men wearing them look pretty much the same.

It’s fun to pretend that my beard conveys some deep-seated biological message, and I can dress as much as I want like a lumberjack – but in reality, I type words on a laptop for a living. I know I’ve often felt utterly useless as a man, hung over at my desk, struggling to meet some arbitrary deadline. That feeling of not being able to provide is often cited as the reason why so many men feel depressed, listless, and angry about nothing in particular.

It’s easy to grasp at superficial concepts of masculinity (like beards, which are much easier to grow than, say, a strong sense of purpose, good relationships, or life satisfaction) in these times. “I should go hunt some wild boar to take back to my den,” I think. (Someone else would have to kill, skin, and cook the boar for me, because I’d find that all rather gross.)

In times like these, we’re more conditioned than ever to want quick wins with minimal input. And what better way to gesture toward such an elusive concept as masculinity than by growing a thick, shiny beard. I can still eat my overnight oats and wear sweatpants, but at least now I’ll look and feel a lot more manly without any boar blood on my hands.

But I can’t help but wonder if it’s all a little pointless. Clinging to the idea that facial hair can give you the kind of life you want, or that it gives you an impression that you shouldn’t try to create yourself, through your words and actions, is like choosing a useless suit of armor in a time when dragons no longer need to be slayed and women are no longer damsels in distress. Like most of modern life, it’s all a weird cosplay. Everyone is pretending to be someone they’re not, in some way, to compensate for insecurities that probably no one else cares about.

Maybe that’s why modern women are looking for a rodent boyfriend instead of an alpha male. The old world is dying and while the new world is struggling to be born, now is the time of rat boys.