Why are we so obsessed with hair? Just a bunch of fibers sprouting out of your skin, yet we make a massive fuss over it. Those with it, flaunt it. News anchors, fashion models, that damned Jeremy Allen White. Boy, does he love to show off. His hair should be nominated for an Emmy, just on thickness alone. What did he do to deserve that floppy mess on top of his head? I thought this country was a meritocracy? Nope. He’s obviously benefitted from a family history of thick locks.
Call me greedy if you must, but I don’t just want some hair – the sad remnants of a life in decline – I want a lot of hair. I want so much hair that I have to employ a live-in barber to trim me up twice a day just to keep it all from consuming my entire face. I want people in the streets screaming at the top of their lungs. “Look at that hair! The guy under it isn’t so bad, either!”
I wouldn’t dare classify myself as bald, though. Thinning? Sure. Most people are not tall enough to see my bald spot, nor can they clearly see the nearly imperceptible retreat of my hairline. Unless they spend even a second comparing photos of me today to my Guardian author photo, which is from nine years ago. You might not notice, but I do. I have to carve out an extra 20 minutes every morning just to fuss over my bald spot. I summon what little hope I have left to comb and fluff the thin area at the top of my head, praying I can figure out the cheat code for hiding my darkest shame. Eventually, I surrender – the rage over my metaphorical windmill subsiding as I accept reality.
Unfortunately, for some, being angry and indignant is a prominent part of their personality. Donald Trump’s latest tirade is, at its core, about his own battle with the ravages of time. Literally and figuratively. Once again, Trump has come face to face with what he actually looks like, which would terrify and enrage just about anyone. When he’s not obsessing over the afterlife, Trump spends an inordinate amount of time kvetching about his appearance. First, it was a painting that made him look like a time-traveling Tudor monarch who just got kicked out of a Sizzler buffet line. Now, he’s directed his ire at Time magazine, which put him on the cover in tribute to his efforts to broker peace in Gaza. The headline, “His Triumph,” cements the fawningly positive positioning.
The staff at Time probably thought they were going to get a gentle kiss on the cheek from Daddy (the owner of Time is the billionaire Marc Benioff, who has recently come out as a Trump supporter), but instead they received a digital tongue lashing for the cover photo – shot from underneath, Trump’s obscene neck crease filling the frame. At the top of the cover, Trump’s signature metallic yellow wave of hair looks thin and wispy, like someone dumped a handful of dry angel hair pasta on his head as a college prank.
As is his right as an American with the power of free speech as enshrined in our constitution, Trump used Truth Social to register his displeasure. “They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Really weird! I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?”
Maybe Ice got a hold of his hair and refuses to disclose its whereabouts. As for the crown, you’d think he’d appreciate the honor, but gratitude is not a Maga virtue. I understand the thing about the angles, though. Who wants to be photographed from underneath besides models for an obscure fetish blog and professional wrestlers?
I recognize that the natural first reaction to realizing you’re losing your hair is to be angry about it. Surely, it must be someone else’s fault. It’s the angles or the lighting. The reality is what it is, though, and it’s better to live in the world than to imagine it as something else. The man is nearly 80. Hair loss at that age seems inevitable, unless you’re an obscure Kennedy cousin or a member of the Rolling Stones. But there have never been more ways to solve the problem of thinning hair.
There are transplant procedures, the tried-and-true Rogaine method, spraying Krylon paint on yourself and praying the temperature doesn’t rise above 70F, and various magical pills that supposedly offer painless hair regrowth. I was watching the Major League Baseball playoffs recently, which is a treasure trove of ads for bizarre medical treatments, alcoholic beverages and sitcoms no one watches. One of the ads was for a product called Nutrafol, which is a pill that promises to regrow hair “from within” – not exactly where I want hair to grow. I’m not looking to grow an afro in my colon, so maybe they should rethink their marketing strategy.
The Nutrafol website looks like you should be able to order Sweetgreen from it – bland fonts, tasteful product shots, and random photos of people looking up to the sky like a 747 is about to crash into their barn. The pills contain a variety of natural-sounding ingredients like “horsetail” (horses have beautiful hair!), kelp (not much hair down in the ocean, but sure), and something called “tocotrienol complex”, which sounds like the name of a synth band from the late 1980s.
I can’t in good conscience endorse such a product in my position as a credible journalist, but you know who can? The president of the United States. The Trump administration has already vaporized most norms and rules of decorum for the highest office in the land, so why not reach a little bit deeper into our collective pockets for some more loose change? Spin this negative into a positive and let Trump – who has already successfully sold his fans hats, steaks, fake college educations, wine and an imploding economy – endorse a pill for bald guys. From pain comes profit. What’s more American than that?
