CNN
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The internet isn’t as nice a place as it used to be.
On social media, misogyny, misinformation and algorithm-enhanced maleficence are increasingly commonplace. Like many people who once looked to Twitter for community, my online circles have been depleted and my feeds hijacked by the self-indulgent thread-makers and self-appointed blue-tick influencers of Elon Musk-era X.
Yet, there are still friendly, welcoming corners of the internet. And I have found mine.
Reddit’s r/bald is a 143,000-strong community (comprised mostly of, presumably, bald men) offering advice, support and encouragement to those who’ve taken, or are considering taking, “the plunge” by shaving off their thinning hair. With the strapline “lose your hair, not your head,” it is the antithesis of toxic masculinity — a place where men share their vulnerabilities and are actively nice to one another. Founded in 2011, this refuge for the follicly challenged is now among Reddit’s 2% most popular forums (or “subreddits”) and attracts upwards of a dozen posts a day.
There are two ways in which these typically unfold.
The first sees men uploading photos of their desperate hairlines and receiving a friendly but necessary reality check. “Is it over for me?” reads one recent entry. “Is it time, brothers?” “Should I bite the bullet?” “Time to let go?” others ask. The answer is, almost invariably, yes. But the bad news is delivered with warmth and empathy by those — me included — who also clung on longer than they should have.
The second type of post sees people unveiling their freshly shaved bald heads, sometimes preceded by photos of their erstwhile hairlines or conspicuous comb-overs. What follows is a flood of whatever the opposite of cyber-bullying is (cyber-camaraderie?), whereby users say which handsome celebrity the original poster — or OP, in Reddit-speak — resembles and how much better they look. And guess what? They, almost invariably, do. As late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld famously observed: “Nothing makes you look older than attempting to look young.”
The most-liked post in r/bald’s 13-year history is a case in point. Titled “I gave in today,” it is accompanied by a series of correspondingly despondent “before” photos. The final slide, however, reveals a man transformed. “If there was a top 10 of bald glow ups, you’d be in there somewhere,” reads one of the 13,000 replies. “Bro you look utterly reborn,” wrote another user.
While I can’t speak for the subreddit’s thousands of commenters, I’m sure many are motivated by their own experience of male pattern baldness. I certainly wish I’d known about r/bald as I clung to the last remnants of my own hair.
Balding can be a strangely isolating process. It is a glaring reminder of our mortality coupled with more prosaic concerns about becoming less attractive, having a weird-shaped head and looking like every other hairless guy. Friends and loved ones may tell us how great we’d look bald but, sadly, we often care more about what strangers (rather than people whose opinions really matter) think of us.
And what better balm for your insecurities than having thousands of anonymous internet users call you a hunk?
There is, of course, lots of other head-related chatter on r/bald. Do you wear a hat in bed? Should you moisturize your scalp? Beard or no beard? Occasionally, someone with a few years’ worth of remaining hair posts a photo, and users recommend a shorter trim as a — albeit short-term — solution.
More rarely still, someone whose anxiety has clearly got the better of them posts a photo showing, to all intents and purposes, a full head of hair. Yet, rather than decry their delusion, r/bald’s envious users will remind OP of his luck, tell him how glorious his mane is and send him on his way. After all, as one of the forum’s rules reads: “Treat the hair-headed ones with kindness too.”
The forum’s other directives speak to a culture of understanding. “No bald-bashing,” reads one. Also outlawed: advocating hair-restoration methods (we leave that to the folk over at r/HairTransplants and r/HairlossProgressPics) and trash-talking, which includes, moderators write, referring to someone with a full head of hair as having “superior genetics.”
And it’s not just r/bald. Many of Reddit’s other personal style forums serve up a healthy mix of positive validation and constructive criticism. On the 271,000-member r/MensFashion, users praise or politely critique one another’s “fit checks”; the 6.5-million-strong r/MakeupAddiction rates users’ beauty regimes and hosts weekly makeup contests.
These communities, like all subreddits, are largely self-policed by user-moderators who are invested in the topic at hand. The community’s opinion matters, too: “Upvoted” comments rise to the top of the discussion, while responses that are widely “downvoted,” either for being mean-spirited or inaccurate, sink from view.
There are other ways in which the platform’s design encourages courteous behavior among bald men and beyond. Users achieve good “karma” scores by being consistently upvoted, meaning that status is acquired by making valuable contributions, not by provoking outrage. Tiny profile pictures meanwhile deflate egos, as does the difficulty of going “viral” beyond a circle of people interested in a particular subject. There are no Reddit celebrities here.
The result is, often, more informed and informative conversation than is found on other social media platforms. While X continues to hemorrhage users (and advertisers) following the Musk takeover, Reddit — long a minnow among social media behemoths — appears to be flourishing. The platform averaged 97.2 million daily active users in the last quarter, a year-on-year increase of 47%.
In fact, switching X for Reddit in my online diet was perhaps the best decision I’ve made this year — not just for the stream of body-positivity that now fills my feed each day, but for my renewed faith in human civility. And yes, you would probably look better bald.