A case for No-Shave November

The beard is a cultural phenomenon. Never has anything been claimed by so many different sub-cultures—athletes claim it with the playoff beard, hipsters claim it for douche-bag’s sake, porn stars take it for it’s general appeal, I guess. The beard is a polarizing figure, women love it, women hate it, but it is bigger than looks. It’s a statement.
Enter November—the month known best for it’s ever-American qualities: Over-eating, football, and frivolous shopping. Despite November’s monumental contributions to the American spirit, it is still willing to offer the American people something more, something different, something great—no shave November.
The premise of no shave November is as simple as it sounds—you don’t shave for the entirety of November. Though this sounds simple, and somewhat stupid, I promise you it is not. This is one of the most culturally relevant holidays in existence today, mostly because it hasn’t caught enough fire to be ripped to shreds by capitalism—it’s pure.
But this isn’t a column condemning capitalism—I like capitalism—it is a column intended to bring light to one of the least heralded holidays of the year. Because really, the ultimate purpose of a holiday is to (a) bring light to a prominent issue (b) bring together mass groups of people to rally around a common cause. And no shave November succeeds in both regards.
(A) Being that it highlights the issue that is facial hair. The majority of NSN’s participants are college students, and for many of these young men, November is their chance to finally learn how poorly they grow facial hair. In society today growing a beard in high school is somewhat frowned up. People see these kids as creepy, and childish. Enter college, the one place where you can do whatever you want and label it as something greater than it is, an experiment. This is the time to learn, the time for people to finally know if they can actually grow decent facial hair.
(B) Being that if you participate in NSN you are suddenly apart of a community. The sudden hordes of destitute facial hair appearing on college campuses around America all have something in common—the individuals behind the shabby beards can rally around the fact that they can or cannot grow facial hair. It’s a uniting culture. People, who would never have had a common ground otherwise, are suddenly relatable.

It’s beautiful, really—when something so simple as a non-action can help to create a community. It can surely be put off and dismissed as something childish, and stupid, but why would you want to? It falls into the same category as sporting events and most forms of entertainment. People rally around these things, and come together to form bonds that go for deeper than whatever it was that got them there.
There will always be naysayers no matter what the cause, but they should almost always be ignored—unless the naysayers are making light of negative issues regarding the original issue.
But no shave November has zero negative issues. It is not violent, it does not hinder intellectual discussion, nor does it belittle anyone. It is a holiday in the purest sense of the word. And honestly, that almost brings a tear to my eye.