The Mullet Is Coming Back (And With It A Revolution)

With the past year's hottest social spot being a tiny video conference window, fashion statements were mostly limited to picking which unwashed hoodie to wear. But with the moment fast approaching when we can literally show our faces again, it's time to start thinking about how we want those faces to look. And what better way to express what a strange and unexpected journey we've gone through than by telling your hairdresser you want to look like Ziggy Stardust.

The mullet, the world's least employable hairstyle (pro-wrestlers and roadies excluded), is making its first-ever (unironic) comeback. First reinvigorated by Miley Cyrus/Joe Exotic in mid-2020, it's now predicted to become one of the major fashion trends in the post-vaccine summer. But instead of calling it a mullet, Gen Z influencers are going with "wolf cut," a valiant rebranding attempt to get that banjo twang out of the people's head while still paying respect to the mullet's panel van roots. 

But those who want to go mullet this season should know it comes with certain powers -- and not just the one where you instinctively know how to play power chords on a Flying-V guitar. The mullet is the only true gender-neutral haircut in the world: No matter your sex, age, or appearance, it'll make you look like a 45-year-old gas station attendant on their way to a SKYNYRD concert. This means that for the first time, men get to participate on the same terms as women in getting that post-major event emotional haircut. This haircut tells the world you're ready for a change with all the eager desperation of a federal fugitive who just gave themselves a makeover in a motel bathroom sink. 

More importantly, the pandemic has made men ready to accept the burden of an emotional haircut. A poll of over 2,000 men established that, of all the old hair fads, one in five men would want to experiment with a mullet, but that wouldn't mean anything if the same poll didn't also show that men have actually started experimenting with their hair as a coping mechanism. In 2020, a majority of U.S. men tried something different with their hair, from home haircuts to dye jobs. A staggering one in three even experienced the great coiffure catharsis that womankind has struggled with since the dawn of time: really really regretting getting highlights. 

But the mullet has not come to just give straight dudes a new way of expressing themselves. Activists everywhere have already recognized that the mullet will soon become the haircut of the people's revolution. They will don the 'do of the broletariat and join together in the class struggle to eliminate pre-covid prejudices -- including that anyone who wears a mullet has enough plaid shirts to outfit an entire lumber yard. The mullet has already become such a powerful symbol of change that North Korea has banned it (and tight jeans) as being too subversive for its totalitarian regime. 

For the past year, we have had our front-facing work laptop while our backs faced our home, the place of leisure and relaxation. Like with the mullet, those two worlds have now merged irrevocably. But our corporate and political overlords want to pretend like nothing ever happened, urging us back to commute schedules and timed bathroom breaks. But we will not forget. We shall don the mullet to show that while we too look towards a fresh start, we will continue to carry the tangled mess of change on our shoulders. That many may be keen to trade the stale air of our apartments for that of stale coffee and industrial, but that that does not mean they're willing to let their lives be all-business, all the time, again. And that's the true political power of the coming mullet craze. Wearing it will show those in power that, sure, we'll take their business in the front, but no longer in the back. 
Or, y'know, it's just a weird haircut to get during our hot dirtbag summer phase.

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Top Image: PXhere/Alan Levine, Miley Cyrus/Instagram