Need to very careful over this data. For example it was compulsory from the Crimean war (1856) until 1916 for British soldiers not shave above their top lip[1]. In the PDF it is stated that he doesn't exclude military pictures so I suspect there may be quite a strong bias here.
I recall reading about Amish men and why they grow a bead but no moustache apparently it was a protest against military organizations where a moustache was mandatory.
If you ever see an old journal article like this and you want to extract the data check out g3data:
Description-en: extract data from scanned graphs
g3data is used for extracting data from graphs. For example, graphs
are typically published in scientific journals without tables of the
actual data; g3data makes the process of extracting these data easy.
The Hipster Peak of the 2010s will certainly make its way into the annals of beardology, with a corresponding increase in skirt width 21 years earlier, of course.
For some reason I thought this would just be a album of beard pictures... But on viewing I realized that's probably not something HN would vote to the front page.
The author claims to have done that to account for the relative age differences between the women (generally younger models) and the men (generally older "successful" men) featured in the magazine. If that is the case (and not just an excuse) then you might expect a bearded man to be of the same generation as a wide-skirted woman that appeared 21 years earlier.
Even if you didn't shift the graphs, though, the data would still be striking. It'd likely remind me of a predator-prey graph (e.g. http://www2.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/graph... ) which is "easily" modeled with differential equations.
I'm actually wondering whether facial hair is reciprocal to women's rights. The trend reverts around 1890, which correlates well with women's suffrage.
This reminds of a comment I saw a couple of days back [1].
Someone should really gather the data and study the influence of beardedness on programming language success, now that we have a background to subtract!
I once walked down the long hallway of a medical school that featured class pictures of every year back into the 1800s. The black and white photos made it visually apparent which years had more facial hair (until more recently when women started being admitted).
I have always wished I'd taken the time to count the data and look at the pattern... but it turns out someone has already done this research.
I was happy to see the NHL's facial hair promotion end last Fall, looked like Village People cover band auditions every night for a month. Ack!
I've been wearing a beard for 18 years b/c razors irritate my face, imagine my elation to hear they are fashionably 'cool' again. I'm hoping this too passes quickly.
Let's not confuse the New York Post with quality journalism. The only number mentioned is the number of transplants performed per week, and it's not obvious from the quote that all the recipients are 'hipsters'.
I like how you can't just be "a dude who wants a thicker beard." You have to be a "hipster wannabe" so we can properly establish who deserves mockery and who will be delivering it.
I wish I could grow a beard. But my Irish-Native american heritage currently only allows me to grow about 75 +/- 10 hairs of blonde-reddish scraggly facial hair. However, I have been told that during my 30s things might change.
I did a big job a year ago and had to recruit two young guys for my team(21 & 24). Neither had met the other before and they both had neat, groomed beards. Early on they both complimented me on my late winter 'griz' and issued their complaints about itching, debris collection & the unavoidable mess that is beard trimming(pro tip: do it outside). I inquired why they had them if they hated it & they both said their girlfriend was a fan of Greys Anatomy & the bo-hunk actors all had them so they had to grow theirs, too.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_hair_in_the_military#Uni...