As part of a new project just getting underway here at “all about beards”, I’ve made available a set of beards.org stickers to promote the growing of more beards worldwide. You can find them here.

A longtime friend and supporter of the site — and commenter on the blog! — suggested another saying for a beard sticker. Given the current acknowledgement that beards have been growing in numbers, the statement about the bearded zeitgeist seems particularly apt today. As they say, “resistance is futile.” Grow your beard!

I have seen recent news articles noting that beards have enjoyed increasing popularity lately. I couldn’t help but notice that in most of these articles, the author expresses some bewilderment about the bearded resurgence and seems to hope that it cannot be more than a passing fad. Apparently, they would be happy to see all of these new beards vanish as quickly as possible. Rejecting the legitimacy of wearing a beard almost seems to be an automatic response!

There’s nothing bad or wrong about wearing a well-groomed beard. It’s basically the same as maintaining well-groomed hair on the scalp. Why the automatic frowning on beards? Just a conditioned response? Some re-conditioning is in order. Do your part to stir up the men’s fashion writers. Grow a beard and keep it!

A recurrent theme for those who criticize beards is to trot out a long list of historic bad guys with beards. Obviously, that must PROVE that beards are somehow bad, right? It does not take, however, too much effort to compile a similar list of historic bad guys without beards. So, don’t blame it on the beard!