At work the other day, I looked up to find a 20-something-year-old man sitting in front of me, stroking his waxed, handlebar mustache like it was his prized possession. Caught off guard by this image, I ended up watching him as he casually spoke with his friends, drank and ate, and generally went about his normal business, all while stroking his mustache.

Even after he had gone, I kept remembering the mustached man, unable to put my finger on why he stuck with me. It may be because a small part of me kept picturing him as the villain in an old black and white film, twirling his mustache as he laughed maniacally before the damsel tied to the train tracks met a very rough end. Or maybe it was just the sheer amount
of times he touched his own mustache — 15 that I noticed.

But I had this nagging feeling that while those both seemed odd, they were not what fascinated me so. It finally hit me as I was about to fall asleep that night…I hadn’t seen a fully- grown mustache such as that in a long time, especially on someone who was roughly my age.

With this new thought, I decided to do some digging, as anyone would. It turns out, I was right: the mustached man has been a rare site for the last several decades. Of course there are always the outliers, but the majority of society had abandoned the mustache and all its glory.

So what made it return?

Some exploration led me to the American Mustache Institute’s web page, which was full of information and interesting facts about mustaches. But more than facts or statistics, it gave explanations, such as a timeline of the mustache throughout history. Through this timeline, one can begin to determine the trend of the mustached man.

A number of factors have surely contributed to the rise of the mustache: the popularity of No-shave November, or Movember as it is fondly known, the media or TV shows that prominently feature mustached men, such as Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy or Ron Swanson.

But it’s more than that.

The traditional adult is no longer what we picture as children, which sort of looks like the cast of “Mad Men,” all business people with power suits and important jobs. Not to say there are not still people like that, but it is no longer the norm. Having a full-time job does not always mean working from 9 to 5. Being a parent doesn’t mean you hide your tattoos, but display your sleeve with pride. A mustached man is not Ron Burgundy and the channel 4 news crew, against the progression of women and society.

So who is he?

Perhaps he is a hipster, growing his ironic facial hair to emphasize his creativity and open-mindedness. Perchance he wants to be a powerful man, or is a powerful man and wants to have facial hair he feels accurately displays what he wants to say to the world. Maybe he just really hates shaving. But whatever the reason, the mustached man is making his comeback. I, for one, applaud him!