ALERT: Fake man-buns are NOT “a thing.” Is anything?

November 19, 2015 Originally published on SFGate

“Clip-in man buns are now a thing!” exclaimed the rather loathsome link clogging up my in-box just the other day – a link pointing, if you will, to an actual, shut-the-front-door Groupon hawking said fashion abomination for mere $9.99 (“A savings of 85%!” yeah right bulls–t).

The clip-in man bun! Because what smarmy Euro-Vegas nightclub lurker/Russell Brand Fan Club member doesn’t want 19 cents’ worth of Chinese-made fishing line stuck on his head so as to stake his claim to of-the-moment style and epic near-future mortification? None of them, that’s who.

(Caveat emptor: I do not at all loathe the man-bun look. In fact, had I sufficient follicles of appropriate scale and dimension, I’d definitely rock it. It can be done. But as it stands, only a few male humans can actually pull it off. Guys like Beckham, Brand, Pitt. Just FYI).

Look. Just because 9 people do a silly thing once at a drunken bridesmaid party, doesn't make it an authentic cultural event, OK?

Look. Just because 9 people do a silly thing once at a drunken bridesmaid party, doesn’t make it an authentic cultural event, OK?

So then, are they really? “A thing,” that is?

Of course they’re not. As you surely know, American culture’s meth-addled rules of wishy-washy grammatical evil currently state that “a thing” refers to any hunk of pop culture chyme – a behavior, a scientific finding, a product, a drug, a presidential candidate, a gross-out food item, a Kardashian – that’s become either inexplicably popular, culturally relevant and/or a trending Twitter hashtag, if for no other reason than enough people declared it to be so.

Does the fake man-bun meet any of this criteria? Is it really a bona-fide fashion trend enjoyed by actual humans? Not a chance. Groupon claims they’ve sold more than 5,000 of them. Groupon is lying like dumb Ben Carson.

Look. The truth is, there’s is only one blessedly temporary, lonely little trend that can truly lay claim to being called “a thing.”

That’s right: Calling something “a thing.”

Funeral selfies. Eyeball tattoos. Tattoos of Larry David’s face. Vodka eyeballing. Vajazzling. Robo tripping. The NRA Wine Club. Sleep texting. Sex addiction. Werewolf cats. Square dogs. Ambien binge eating. Fifty Shades of Gray anal beads. Any moronic thing performed by any inept teenager pretty much anywhere on Earth that either A) Blew off his first three fingers, B) Got his “crew” banned from Walmart for life, C) Humiliated a farm animal. Donald Trump.

See what I mean? All of those and many more like them have been called “a thing” at one point or another in recent years, and all are vacuous, demeaning, soul-curdling BS, all the time. Not one of them will resonate in the social consciousness for years to come. Not one will have any sort of lasting impact where it matters most.

But calling them “a thing”? That’s fun. That’s truly of-the-moment. That’s totally a thing.

Word.

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Mark Morford

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