People can see what you’re trying to hide from them
What would it mean to "own it" instead? C.O.M.B.O.V.E.R. Mindset, explored
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— Jonah & Erin
The other day we received a Personal Spyplane question on the subject of HAIR LOSS that has unlikely relevance for all of us —
“I’m going bald. Do I embrace nature and go full Larry David or try to hang onto it?” —@yamsforever
Personally, yr boy was blessed with a glorious cabbage, peace to the thick-maned stallions in my family tree for encoding these lustrous curls into my d*mn DNA 👹. But since I’m also an unorthodox sletter-philosopher, my thoughts often turn to hair loss — and specifically combovers — all the same, as I contemplate issues of self-presentation and the swag sciences. Because hair loss, and how people react to it, has implications you can extrapolate far beyond the domepiece, illuminating the many ways we all attempt to “correct” our appearances.
Everyone has things about themselves they might like to hide, augment or alter — wearing clothes is, of course, one of the simplest “technologies” of body modification. When we attempt these augmentations we become vulnerable, because in trying to obscure or mitigate a self-perceived weakness, we risk drawing unflattering attention directly to that weakness and (even worse??) drawing attention to the insecurity we feel about it. The combover fascinates me as just one (particularly comical) example among many. Steering into inexorable forces, like they’re icy patches of highway, tends to register as more graceful and more “honest,” thus more attractive. Whereas a combover-type maneuver — steering against the skid, hope against hope — creates a cringingly overcompensatory “LOL who do you think you’re fooling??” scenario.
There are all kinds of non-literal combovers all of us deploy in our self-presentations. Which ones are embarrassing? Which ones are successful??
Today we are exploring a new Spyplane mindset: “C.O.M.B.O.V.E.R.” Mindset, which holds that Cringe Overcompensation Maneuvers Bespeak Obvious Vanity — Embrace Realness. Let’s get into it—
These days, combovers seem to exist more as punchlines / retro sight gags than actual hairdos. This is because, as an attempted bulwark against baldness, they read as so screamingly inelegant and inept — a too-small band-aid on a too-big boo-boo. Case in point: Christian Bale rocks the wild combover in American Hustle, and while you have to grant moments where he looks strangely dope, as in the still immediately above, that dopeness derives less from his combover than from its juxtaposition with the belly-out / gold Star of David / silk cravat styling. (Not to mention the fact that it comes swaddled in irony, and it’s a movie, and he’s Christian Bale.) The combover is not there to make Bale look attractive, it’s there to telegraph his character’s ridiculousness, dishonesty and — crucially — vanity.
That’s the root problem with the combover. It radiates vanity at its most sweaty and delusional, and vanity gnaws termitelike at the foundations of swag. Another way of putting it is that there’s a lot of cruelty in the world, especially when it comes to body image, and while it’s hard not to absorb and be deformed by that cruelty — wielding it against yourself in unhealthy, crazymaking ways — it’s infinitely doper to proceed not from a place of internalized self-loathing, but from a place of externalized self-love baby!!
What’s cooler: Someone whose presentation seems like an unhealthy symptom of other people’s coercive unkindness, or someone whose presentation communicates sauced-out, f**k-these-lames autonomy?
The most common men’s-mag-type wisdom when it comes to hair loss is therefore to go all in and cut what hair you do retain down to a close crop, or buzz it off entirely, rather than clinging futilely to the past and putting a ridiculously heavy burden on your remaining follicles. There’s obvious merit to this, and given your style / vibe / head shape / etc., it may work great for you.
