I have two words: Fake Mustaches. Now I have a question: Why?? Recently, whenever I go on facebook, I see girls smiling with pasted-on mustaches, and women coyly holding fake mustaches on sticks, and guys wearing glasses with fake mustaches attached. Heck, I even see moms putting fake mustaches on their babies. I get invited to fake mustache parties, and I see people holding their fingers below their noses as if to say, “this is my temporary fake mustache until I can get my hands on a real one.” The other weekend, I went to a “hipster pool party” in DC, and the prize for one of the pool-side games was a package of fake mustaches. All of a sudden, a gaggle of twenty-four-year-old interns were prancing around in bikinis and fake mustaches. They seemed to think the mustaches made them more attractive and desirable to the opposite sex. And who knows, maybe they did.
I suppose my confusion about what is apparently a very popular trend just signals the fact that I’m getting old. If I were young, I would inherently understand the appeal of fake mustaches. But since I’m now an old fuddy-duddy, I’m left to puzzle out this trend using logic. The following is a question-and-answer session I held with myself.
Q: Why are fake mustaches popular right now?
A: I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with 70’s cops. People really like 70’s cops.
Q: Are girls who wear fake mustaches more attractive than girls who don’t?
A: This is a tricky question. Real mustaches on a girl are generally not attractive, so maybe if a girl with a real mustache were to wear a fake mustache, to hide her real one, that might be an improvement. On the other hand, take a girl who is mustache-free, but unattractive for some other reason – boils, for example – I don’t think putting a fake mustache on her would improve things. The appeal is when an already attractive girl dons a fake mustache. It makes her seem fun and personable. So the sad truth is, a fake mustache will not make you more attractive.
Q: Can men wear fake mustaches?
A: Yes, certainly. But it seems to be considered much cooler for a man to actually grow an “ironic” mustache. He acts like he would never really in real life have a mustache; he’s just growing one to be ironic. But secretly, he wants to prove his manly facial-hair-growing abilities, and secretly he thinks the mustache makes him look cool, like a 70’s cop.
Q: If a dude finds himself attracted to a girl wearing a mustache, what does that mean? Is he bi-sexual?
A: The mustache is a sex symbol. It’s a creepy one, but a sex symbol all the same, no matter who is wearing it. The mustache draws attention to the lips, which are a very sexy part of the face. You may look at a mustache and begin thinking about lips and mouths and orifices and all sorts of sexy stuff. If you’re a man finding yourself attracted to a woman with a fake mustache, that’s probably normal, and you should go for it.
Q: What is the appropriate time to wear a fake mustache?
A: Pool parties, apparently, but otherwise it’s hard to say. You can’t just slap one on in the morning before you walk out the door. The mustache should be put on in a social setting and only worn for a short amount of time. You need to be excellent at reading social cues and take the mustache off after it ceases to be funny and ironic.
Q: Does the plethora of women wearing mustaches have something to do with feminism? Or post-feminism? Are women wearing mustaches to make a statement?
A: No. I think it has something to do with 70’s cops.
If you have information or opinions on the topic of fake mustaches, please send it to eva_langston@yahoo.com. I am continuing to research this very strange and interesting phenomena.
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