If you’re a man on the internet in 2026, there’s a good chance you’ve been flooded with ads for ways to help you cling to your hair. Supplements, sprays and red-light masks promise “real results!” PRP therapy, a buzzy treatment involving needle injections into the scalp, can be administered on a lunch break. Countless before-and-after transplant posts, meanwhile, feature guys who flew to Turkey as Sphynx cats and seemingly returned as kings of the jungle.
Balding is framed as “a disease to get rid of,” said Ben Sherry, 27, a lifestyle influencer who works in higher education in San Diego, Calif. To keep his hair, Sherry tried several methods—finasteride pills, a dermarolling device that pricks the scalp to increase blood flow, and a toupee, among others—before shaving it all off in April. The video of him doing so has been viewed a million times on Instagram. Once bald, Sherry felt relief and acceptance, he said—along with a sense that “it really never was that deep.”
He is among a cohort of men who have had enough of hiding under hats and obsessively monitoring hairlines. Instead, they’re reaching for the clippers and showing off their bald heads IRL at festivals and meetups, and on social-media accounts like Bald Café and Bld Bro, where they exchange vulnerable transformation photos and virtual fistbumps.
Reddit’s r/bald subreddit page is the community’s high-fiving, shaka-throwing town square. Founded in 2011, it now has almost half a million followers and 1.2 million weekly visitors. The number of interactions on the page so far this year is already seven times higher than in 2024, according to analytics company Sprout Social.
Choosing baldness is “a natural pushback to the hair-transplant boom,” said Harry James, the founder of Bald Café and a face (head?) of the movement. Shaving off hair is a proactive, empowering move, added James, 35, who lives in Plymouth, U.K., and has more than 300,000 followers across YouTube and Instagram. “For a lot of guys, balding is the first thing they come up against where they really don’t have any control.”
Hair-loss treatments were the fastest-growing category in beauty and personal care in 2025, according to research firm Euromonitor, with $192 million in U.S. sales. Today’s treatments, especially finasteride and minoxidil, give men a “significant chance” of maintaining their hair, said Dr. Jerry Shapiro, a professor of dermatology at New York University and Director of NYU’s Hair Treatment and Research Center. But they must be used indefinitely, he said, stressing that “not everything works for everybody.”
“Looksmaxxing,” a trend that has dominated cultural conversations involving young men, advocates for thoroughbred-thick hair, a hammer-bludgeoned square jaw and steroid-enhanced biceps. Accepting yourself as you are is a preposterous thought. Going bald—or “baldmaxxing”—is the opposite.
The refreshingly wholesome movement includes men who found treatments ineffective, or who blanched at side effects and costs (finasteride has been linked to low libido and mood changes in a small number of men; red-light and PRP procedures can run into the hundreds and thousands). Others simply wanted to let nature run its course.
Before shaving his head last summer, Robert Capron held a “funeral” for his hair, where he and some friends lit candles and printed out photos of his best hair days. Then, once the deed was done, “I made a TikTok video where I’m like, ‘Hey, bald people, I hope you embrace me,’” Capron, 32, said. “And they did.”
“Whenever I have a question about self-care I can depend on a bald elder to set me straight,” he added, noting that he mostly finds peers on Reddit and Facebook or at Trader Joe’s, where he works.
Capron, who is also a musician, was so thrilled with his new community that last summer he organized a bald festival in Philadelphia, where he lives. Advertised on social media, the free event featured bald musicians and stalls from baldness-related brands. Capron expected 60 people to come, but 450 turned up. (Show-offs with hair were given bald caps to wear in solidarity.) His festival’s second edition will be held in August.
Shaving his head, Capron said, is “definitely one of the better decisions I’ve made in my life.”
Embracing baldness isn’t all about inner beauty: Many men who have shared before-and-after shots on social media look outrageously good post-buzz. After all, shaving remains the cheapest and quickest way to deal with a receding hairline.
“Nobody isn’t getting a date because they’re bald,” said Mark Miguez, 42, co-owner of Manhattan barbershop Friend of a Barber, who has noticed an increase in men buzzing their heads—and completing the look with beards—in the last five years. Miguez, who has rocked the look himself since 2018, said that men often look younger with buzzed heads than with visibly thinning hair. He also cited a 2012 study by the University of Pennsylvania that found bald men can appear taller (cue every man in America reaching for the Wahls).
When men ask if they should buzz it off, Miguez often reminds them that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jason Statham are two of Hollywood’s biggest leading men.
James, the Bald Café founder, is also a life and fitness coach, and he noted that shaving the head can spark further transformation: Some men who have done it then get in better shape. Embracing baldness “wakes you up to all this other stuff you can do,” he said. “You’re like, ‘Right, I’ve done this. What else do I need to get in check?’” James has heard from men who asked for raises at work or left toxic relationships after shaving their heads.
That’s not to say letting go of hair is easy. Inspired by men’s stories on Bald Café, Christian Makoa, 24, got his head shaved in January because his thinning hair had affected his confidence and he wanted to start dating. Makoa, who develops software tutorials in Nashville, says he looks “so much better” now, but sometimes he wishes he still had a full head of hair. “I think, ‘Well, a transplant is always an avenue I could explore.’ ”
That’s not the case for James Stolis, a chemical engineer in Las Vegas, who declared independence from his follicles last July 4 by shaving his head on a mountaintop in California. A video capturing the moment received 30,000 likes when it was shared on Bald Café’s Instagram.
“It’s done,” said Stolis, 29. “I don’t need to worry about hair anymore.”
