This falls under Social Issue. Those scraggly long beards are real popular nowadays. Lots of Trump supporters seem to have them. I think they’re sometimes called terrorist beards. Anywho, why do so many men wear their beards like that? My guess is there’s some psychology going on. I’m thinking the look is associated with tough macho men like the frontiersmen of the olden days (think Revenant). BUT these men really are small minded sissies inside and so they have these beards to compensate. Kinda like a bully actually feels small so he takes it out by acting tough.
Then again being in the middle of someone among my people, who’s starting to sport and groom one of those, with some opposition from significant others and such, I don’t think any thing you mentioned holds true for him. Olden frontier days are unimaginable, though there may be some Hollywood romance lurking in the background, it just for fun and because he can. It’s just a thing.
Plus, besides, if you got it, flaunt it, and he’s got a nice thick one.
I’ve sported beards on and off, but it’s more a laziness thing, I get sick of shaving sometimes. Then after a while the thing starts itching and its gotta come off and stay off until the next time.
Big unkempt beards are a millennial thing – nothing to do with politics – although they peaked several years ago. I started seeing it around 10 years ago in my peer group as I’m a borderline Gen-X/millennial, though haven’t noticed many Trump supporters over the years with that style. If anything, younger Trump supporters seem to have the typical clean cut conservative look, maybe similar to the “groypers”.
Facial hair trends come and go…who knows why? Maybe there is an attempt to look more masculine, or maybe it’s just slovenliness. Poor grooming is a sign of depression and millennials do suffer high rates of depression.
I could see the manliness theory holding some water too as younger men were raised in a kind of neutered environment, and maybe growing sloppy facial hair is a misguided attempt to express themselves.
Very few millennials are sporting scraggly beards. It’s more of an older man thing from what I can tell. The millennials you pointed to, @thatoneguy, are well kept beards, not scraggly. What the person who started the thread is talking about is that unkempt ZZ Top look, which I’ve seen on a lot of older males.