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Comment by thih9 | Hacker News Reader

Loosely related video, Star Trek actor talks about being bald: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqm_Iq8rFeg .

I'm linking it to remind that perceiving baldness as something negative (here: a criterion for removal from a photo) can be a cause of distress and loss of confidence.

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I know this article is trying to be tongue in cheek but I definitely think it's worth highlighting this issue.

My issue is most people won't find it in bad taste to make this tongue in cheek article. If someone made an article "Remove Mexicans from a photo" most people would realise it's harmful. Baldness is mostly genetic and I think it's horrible to pick on people for it, especially when it can be a huge issue for them.

Come on are there no limits to how sensitive people can be? It’s joke article on the internet, if that offends someone they need to see a shrink. I’m sensitive about my hair in person, with people I care about, but you really can’t be worrying about what online jokers joke about. That would be a full time job.

I think it's kind of interesting that, thirty years later, the CEOs of SpaceX and Blue Origin are bald men.

Elon Musk is bald?

He used to be. Like many rich men who are image-conscious he seems to have had a hair transplant procedure. Look up images of him from the late 90s, he was clearly balding.

Defiantly thinning, but not bald[0].

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Elon_Mus...

that’s after hair transplants dude. Find a pic of him in the late 90s.

I do understand why people would feel insecure about baldness. Is it changing for the better though? Loads of "cool" bald people, think Vin Diesel etc. I still have a head full of hair and just turned 30. Not sure how I'd feel as I've had long hair all my life. I do feel that the volume isn't as high as it was in my early 20s..

I hope we make some progress in a cure either way.

There is medication that can prevent baldness. It has very rare, but very scary side-effects though. Eventually we might have something that fixes the genes responsible for baldness.

It also, as far as I know, requires taking indefinitely. Once you stop, if you were going bald before, that process will continue.

I don't feel like baldness is something that needs to be fixed. To me that sounds the same as saying the genes for blonde hair can be "fixed".

Blond hair is easy to fix. Hair dye has been around for years. Why shouldn’t bald people be afforded the same freedom, in an era where we literally fly through the air on titanium wings just to take vacations?

It's the term "fix" that I don't like. It assumes the opposite state is broken.

A person with normal hair growth can choose to be bald. Someone with alopecia cannot choose the reverse. If baldness were to appear only by choice rather than as a result of low IGF-1 expression in hair follicles, I would imagine it would be more respectable, not less.

It would be helpful. After losing my hair, the sun became the enemy. Easy to forget to bring a hat.

Then you’re out of touch. Almost all men are very unhappy about losing hair, but very few mind being blond. Some even like it!

I've been taking finasteride for nearly a decade. No side effects for me and costs $40 a year. Haven't lost an inch of hairline since I started. My hairline is frozen at mild temple recession that looks "age appropriate" now that I'm older.

Yes I do have to keep taking it but I'm fine with that. Can't even imagine being completely bald at 30 which I would be if I hadn't started it young

I am not, strictly speaking, bald--I have about as much hair as Eisenhower did when he was president. My vanity is much more committed to not caring (or not showing that I care) about such matters than it is to the full head of hair I had years ago.

I went bald very young (started shaving my head around age 20/21 because there just wasn't enough left).

It was a big hit to my confidence, especially as a teen. I also felt it prematurely "aged" me - I used to joke that I turned 28 on my 18th birthday.

It is nice that there are successful/attractive men who are bald to point to, but I was more often compared to Moby or Billy Corgan, not exactly sex symbols.

It all seems silly in retrospect but it felt very serious at that age. I'm so used to it now that I don't even think about it. It helps that I'm old enough that being bald is "age appropriate" and I stick out less than I did in college.

I think it's worse when you're lacking confidence to begin with.

My hair started thinning when I was around 20 and kept thinning till I was about 30. Now it seems to be in a steady state of horse-shoe pattern.

I think it was worse for me when it began, as I started picturing all kind of terrible fates for me. I was obsessed with my hair density and wanted to kill myself. Now that I'm being bald and more mature and self-confident I'm not even sure I'd want to go back to having to do my hair again. And women don't seem to care at all. I'm still surprised by that, but the experiences I make every day make me wish I had lost all of my hair from one day to the next, just to get it over with.

Also, I don't want to romantisize going bald, but I think it rounded out my character.

Thanks for encouraging progress in a cure. Honestly, it all really depends on who you are. Some people don't really mind. Other people, like myself, are drastically affected by it emotionally. I've never really been a masculine guy, and having long, thick hair was part of that. Suddenly having it thin, seemingly overnight, at the age of 18 was a really frustrating thing. It gets frustrating when I want to dress certain ways, but can't pull off various looks because my bald head doesn't fit in with it. I feel like I've been roped into a very specific way of dressing as a result and, once again, the whole thing is really frustrating. I see some of my co-workers come in with fresh and stylish hair cuts and I become jealous I can no longer express myself in the same way.

I don't let it stop me from living my life and doing the things I want, but it's still a garbage thing that I absolutely will not deny has affected me every day.

Insecurities aside, I hate not having natural protection from the sunlight and cold. I miss being able to go to the beach without a hat.

in my personal opinion: baldness used to be unsexier, but that changed in the last 1-2 decades. nowadays it's another hairstyle people might adopt even if they're not bald - fashionable, especially combined with a beard.

being partially bald (instead of going all in ... or all out?) feels like it's (still?) unstylish, as a tonsure (monk spot?) is not a hairstyle you'd be going for on purpose.

though, as i grow older myself, as in 30+, even though i still have a head full of hair i tend to notice it less and less as there are so many people in my social circle (mostly in the 25-45 year age group) sporting partially bald heads it pretty much became the new normal.

edit: one of the reasons might be that people started to get in shape more. if people are balding but in shape, the lack of hair becomes secondary. as linked below: http://extrafabulouscomics.com/comic/180/

One problem with becoming bald is that you now have to worry: what do I do with my sideburns (a sign of masculinity)? Do I trim them at the top and the bottoms?

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