On January 17, 1996, all about beards first appeared on the worldwide web. On January 20, 2005, all about beards moved to its new home on the beards.org domain. Today, all about beards remains the longest-running beard site on the web and is going stronger than ever on its twelfth anniversary.
Keep growing those beards.
I was already on my second full beard before I discovered this website (actually its predecessor site). It encouraged me when I was getting criticized and even brazenly slandered by single women of my generation who were trapped in their anti-beard cultural conditioning. Thanks for keeping the site going!
Here is one encouragement I can offer now:
If you try to do your job and your other community responsibilities well, and you dress at least slightly above “casual” most of the time you are out in public (not necessary for day hikes and other physical, outdoor outings, of course), most people whose approval really matters won’t hassle you about your beard.
I am a Caucasian with brown (and now a little gray) hair. I have been working for several years for a private, for-profit language school for adults that gets most of its students from east and southeast Asia, and slightly more female than male students.
For most of that time, I have had either a mustache, mustache and goatee, or full beard. East Asian women are generally known for not liking facial hair on men (except maybe for mustaches). However, in all this time, I have never gotten a complaint at work about my facial hair, whether from students or office staff (some of whom have also been students). A few east Asian women students have told me they prefer fully-shaven faces on men, but they never complained about my whiskers to me or to the office (and the office would have passed that along!).
I dress above the minimum dress code because students are stuck with having to look at me at least some of the time for one to three hours every day all week.
I also try to do my teaching job well, connecting with students at a professional level and making sure they make at least some progress as the course goes along. I don’t need them to like me. Most do, some don’t, and that’s really OK! The few students who have liked me “too much” have had boundary issues of their own, and I never found them worth pursuing.
I have also remained content not to try to date students, which I think really helps with approval too. Dating students in this workplace would be a legal (student visa issues), financial (if a date went sour, how many of that student’s friends would also transfer to other schools?) and generally ethical conflict of interest (forfeiting all pretense of fairness in the classroom, even if the dating student were not enrolled in my classes specifically).
Of course I’m not trying to be holier-than-thou or fishing for approval. If you have a job like mine, and you date your adult students, and no one perceives that you are partial in your teaching work, then I’m happy for you and respectful of your work and accomplishments. Also, I don’t always do my job perfectly.
Social approval is good and necessary, but it is not the greatest good; the pursuit of social approval at the expense of other priorities is a big cause of nasty office politics and other bad things.
End of ramble. I’m glad this website is continuing to encourage men to live well!
I just wanted to say Happy Anniversary and thanks for all of your work on this great site. I have been coming back here to check out peoples beards fro some time now and really love it. It’s great encouragement to me. Thanks again.
Steve (not Beardguy): Thanks for your great contributions to the blog and the site!
George: Thanks! I hope that the site has encouraged or will encourage you to grow that full beard again that you are showing off in the gallery here!