In a pitiful attempt to evoke an anti-corporate arts-and-crafts image, hipsters have plagued America with their painfully pretentious facial hair. These beta-males skulk across the streets of Brooklyn talking about Facebook and opining on nothing of any particular meaning while showing off a carefully manicured scruffy appearance.

These manginas are unaware that it was, in fact, the alpha males of U.S. Special Forces that reintroduced the beard into popular culture. In 2001, terrorists struck America, destroying the World Trade Center and blowing a burning hole in the side of the Pentagon. In response, America deployed the unconventional warfare experts of Special Forces.

In order to blend in with their host-nation counterparts, the Northern Alliance, Special Forces soldiers grew out their beards. The beard is a status symbol in Afghanistan, denoting age and manliness. Many village elders in Afghanistan have beards that blow up under their armpits when a strong gust of wind rolls through the Hindu Kush. In order to garner respect in this tribal culture, Special Forces teams also began sporting beards, but with an American twist—the ever-present ballcap.

Over time, the beard became institutionalized within Special Operations culture in two ways. First, the Afghan militias came to respect their American Special Forces mentors and knew that the Americans with beards and ballcaps were the real deal. These were the guys who came to kick some ass and give the enemy the business. Therefore, it became important for SOF to maintain the image status quo.

Second, the beard became a ‘cool-guy’ status symbol within Special Operations. Every soldier in Afghanistan came to believe that the SOF guys with beards were doing something cool. Maybe they didn’t know what, but something cool for sure, whether it was actually true or not. One Ranger remarked to me around 2005 that having a beard is important not because we needed to blend in with the Afghans, but rather because it got us additional respect when we had to go and talk to JSOC elements.

Long a status symbol in Afghan culture, the beard has now migrated and became an institution within the Special Operations community. Although the barrel-chested freedom fighters of Special Forces started growing beards in 2001, it wasn’t until around 2006 that the beard caught on with the hipster subculture.

Thesis: In order to address their own mental, physical, emotional, and sexual inadequacies, the hipsters began to compensate for their lack of testosterone by growing beards. These trendy dirt bags mimicked U.S Special Forces soldiers in a vain attempt to secure legitimacy as men in their communities. But this wasn’t the badlands of Afghanistan, it was in the grass-fed, gluten-free capital of America: Brooklyn.

Every man in America knows that being a Special Operations soldier is the pinnacle of manliness. Following in a grand tradition of men who hunted the wooly mammoth in paleolithic times, killed Nazis in World War II, and landed on the moon, being a SOF operator is at the top of the totem pole when it comes to your man status in America. You may debate my logic, but deep down in your weak, insecure, hipster heart, you know that I speak the truth.

This is how hipsters hijacked the glory of Special Forces for their own sinister purposes. The hipster beard conceals a deep and shameful history filled with artisan cheese, craft beer, and homemade shoes.

But hipsters stole our beards without knowing the deep history of American war-making behind it. Special Forces soldier grew beards to mimic their Afghan counterparts. To put it as politely as possible, Afghan culture is a stone-age mentality of tribalism and misogyny. That’s right, the anti-war, peace-and-love, open-to-anything, feel-good hipsters are mimicking fashion mores that carry a direct contemporary lineage to groups like the Taliban.

Like a surgeon who capitalizes on the medical ‘research’ conducted by the Nazi butcher Josef Mengele, hipsters have allowed themselves to be co-opted by radical Islamic basket cases. At least Special Forces soldiers understand when rapport is designed to be one-sided. But the hipster is a naive creature, cast adrift in a sea of gourmet ice cream shops and gluten-free pizzas, none the wiser to the sinister ideology they grow on their face each day.

(Featured image courtesy of karryon.com)