SOCIAL STUDIES: Fashion Mullets are Worse than Puberty

There are many style statements that exist only in the negative; as in, successful sporting of said s.s. involves not looking better, but simply managing not to be turned into a complete troll by the s.s. in question. Ironically overdone moustaches and beards, especially those with wax, popular in Williamsburg and every other "I am still under the impression that there is a popularity game being played in the world and that winning it is important"-burg around the world fall into this category. So do shoes formerly reserved for those with uneven-leg-length-development issues, all puffiness and awkward soles, in neon colors. Perhaps the most egregious, because the most deeply affective on the immediate visual impression of a person's attractiveness, is the fashion mullet.

Sure, bad clothes can make someone look fatter, dumpier, or more desperately seeking the elusive stamp of codified peer-group approval, but hair is one of the few things a woman can change that truly alters her facial appearance. As a woman, I place a lot of emphasis on the face; you can argue primacy with me at a later date - for now, let's proceed.

The mullet had a limited lifespan in the 80s, a favorite amongst Poison groupies and hockey players alike, but whether you sported your party locks for rock or as a jock, there was one fundamental truth about the hick's favorite haircut: it didn't, and doesn't, look good on ANYBODY.

It's indecisive. it makes the top of the head look puffy and fat, possibly a good thing if you have a long face, but it finishes with the length that drags a possibly cute girl - one who up until now has been tricking you about her over-elongated oval visage - into Tori Spelling slash horse territory. Likewise, if your cheeks are cherubic, you might think that that lengthening effect would help...and it would, if you weren't poodled up top, ensuring maximum facial width to all viewers, regardless of your trailing tails below.

Given, modern mullets are less emphatic than their forebears, more styled, not quite so...drastic, so Wal-Mart-ready, but they still LOOK BAD.

If you manage to pull one off, it's not because it's flattering you, it's simply because you're attractive enough that it's not actively making you look worse. This is only because you're already very, very attractive, and that's great for you, but you're still going to look back on photos from yourself ten years from now, much as my much older sisters - hip high schoolers and coeds in the eighties and very liberal with the use of the blue eyeshadow and a crimping iron - do, cringing at how deep their attempts to uglify themselves for the sake of a momentary trend ran.

Don't even get me STARTED on the stirrup leggings you're probably using to complete your totally hip, not at all derivative, absolutely "unique" "look..."