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Balding
(Picture found on Google Images)
I know a lot of people who really dislike BuzzFeed. It is a social media fueled entity that mostly focuses on trends and laughs, and many people get annoyed by how they do not seem to do anything original and everything is just to lure people into clicking on their links. People click, advertisements play, and BuzzFeed makes money. Personally, while I recognize that this is often and hardly ever visit their website, I quite enjoy a lot of the videos BuzzFeed puts out. Sometimes the videos are pretty silly and almost pointless, but even then they are meant to entertain and lift your spirits. My very favorite videos are the ones that go a little deeper into social issues such as the attitude towards weight in media, the struggles of being transgender, the use of cannabis, and so on. BuzzFeed does not hire actors for its videos; most of the time, the people in the videos are employees at BuzzFeed who plan, film, and edit those same videos. Therefore, you often see recurring "characters" or personalities who will act in one video, taste test an interesting food in another video, and reveal the struggles they are going through in yet another video. My favorite video series that BuzzFeed puts out are the Try Guys. The group is composed of four BuzzFeed employees in their late twenties: Keith, Ned, Zach, and Eugene. They admit that there are only four Try Guys mainly because no one else at work was willing to do the disgusting things they do on camera. The four of them try being Santa Claus, try ballet, try being parents, try chest weights that simulate how breasts feel, try swimming with sharks, etc. For the most part they do not cover anything controversial, but now and then they go a little deeper. When they do, each Try Guy will usually have a completely different reaction to the experience, as happened when they got to see themselves photoshopped into muscular male models.
One of my favorite BuzzFeed Try Guys videos is The Try Guys Go Bald. I think it is really wonderful that they chose to draw attention to something people often think of as bad. And in my opinion, this video shows that no matter how much BuzzFeed promotes being yourself and loving yourself, actually accepting yourself and others is incredibly difficult, especially when sudden changes happen. In this video, the four guys have bald caps put on them. Eugene goes completely bald, commenting that all men truly care about their hair even if they do not seem to. Keith goes bald and has a large, fake mole glued on the back of his head to mimic how he feels about one he actually has underneath his hair. Zach has false hair put on around the sides of his head to imitate the top-bald Jewish man he expects to grow into twenty years down the road. And Ned also goes with the top-bald look but with slightly longer hair on the sides. All four of them are confident starting out, but each one reacts differently yet very negatively to the face they see in the mirror at the end of the makeup process. Eugene feels he looks hard and unapproachable, Keith thinks the mole really is terrible, Zach wonders how he can confidently talk to anyone looking this way, and Ned seriously wonders if his wife will divorce him if he ever ends up balding to this extent.
After the makeup is done, the four guys go out into the office to walk around and ask people for opinions on their hair. A shocking number of people express horror, disgust, and overall dislike. Many people openly say that the guys look absolutely awful, even going so far as to say it "is just bad for everybody." Coworkers say that the fact that Keith has a large mole is so disgusting and many of the girls say that Zach and Ned are actually terrifying to look at. I understand that everyone was surprised, but I could not believe how unsupportive many of them were. However, Eugene got more positive feedback, either because he talked to people who had always thought he would look good bald or proved people wrong that his coolness was all in his hair.
The reason that all of these negative opinions made me so upset was that many of the coworkers whose reactions were filmed have shown up in countless videos about being yourself and doing what you want. I was disappointed that their immediate reaction to the changes made by the Try Guys was disgust. Of course, we all react differently to things that are almost definitely hypothetical and things that are really happening. Still, I know that many people are still going to react so negatively to things like shaved heads even if they are generally open-minded people. We all have room to grow.
The saving grace of this video is the last third or so. After all the negative comments, we get to see the positive ones. Becky is one of my favorite BuzzFeed personalities because she has been so great about coming forward with her various medical issues. She suffers from autoimmune disorders, vaginal pain and sensitivity, relationship hurdles, and a form of alopecia (hair loss). I always love watching her videos and seeing her get through life's problems. Not all that long before the Try Guys tried going bald, Becky decided to stop trying to fight the hair loss with injections into her scalp and had her boyfriend help her shave her head so that she could commit to wigs. When the Try Guys come to see her with their bald heads, Becky is ecstatic. So few people look like her with her bald head, and so few people choose that look. The smile on her face is simply radiant. Becky takes off her wig to bask in the sameness of all of them and they take pictures together.
After that, we get to see other positive responses. They talk to a bald coworker who started losing hair in his early twenties and admits he was worried about having an ugly head. Some female coworkers assure them that they will be just fine if they go bald. Zach decides that he does not care what people think and that maybe he is a perfectly likable person even without a full head of hair. His confidence is further boosted when the makeup artists cut a bit of the length off his side hair and people react much better. Eugene, who has always worn his hair as a calling card, is shocked that no one thinks of him as ugly or mean. Ned ends up putting his side hair into a little ponytail and surprises his wife at home. She is surprised, but is not at all concerned about it. He puts on a suit and struts around the house for her.
Many BuzzFeed videos teach us that we should love ourselves no matter what anyone says, and I think this video actually wraps that up very nicely. Sometimes people will react in ways you never expected, and you have be able to roll with whatever those reactions are. Sometimes people who seem the most open-minded will have the worst initial reaction. Fortunately, once you strut your stuff long enough or carry enough confidence, they will either learn to ignore the change or accept it whole-heartedly. If they can do neither, perhaps they are not the right support system for you.
(Picture of Becky, who is bald, and Eugene, who is wearing a bald cap, found on Google Images)
