{"id":1940,"date":"2010-04-29T23:03:26","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T23:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=1940"},"modified":"2010-04-29T23:03:26","modified_gmt":"2010-04-29T23:03:26","slug":"who_do_you_trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2010\/04\/29\/who_do_you_trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Do You Trust?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aside from one intensely unhappy week back around 1995 or thereabouts, I have proudly worn a full beard for two decades now. That’s not an easy thing when you live in a community that places a high value on conformity, and where the local ideal of how a respectable male is supposed to look hasn’t changed significantly since the Eisenhower Administration.
\nI’ve had girls tell me they wouldn’t go out with me because I have a beard.<\/p>\n

I once had an interviewer ask me to shave it off in exchange for a minimum-wage job working essentially alone in a warehouse, where nobody would ever<\/i> see me. I’ve had other interviewers who haven’t said a word, but who’ve visibly lost interest in me as soon as they got a good look at my face. On one memorable occasion, I was told not to even bother filling out an application until I came back “presentable.” (I told that doughy-faced spud-nugget what he could do with his discriminatory and frankly chickenshit application process.)<\/p>\n

And I’ve put up with sidelong glances and silent disapproval from countless fellow Utahns, who can’t say why, exactly, but just know<\/i> that there’s something wrong<\/i> with men who have beards.<\/p>\n

The irony, of course, is that many of this state’s founders<\/a> were impressively bearded themselves. No less a figure than Brigham Young<\/a> sported a mustache-less Quaker-style beard in his latter days (forgive me, I couldn’t resist). Presidents of the Mormon Church Lorenzo Snow<\/a> and Joseph F. Smith<\/a> — not to be confused with his uncle, the Joseph Smith who founded the Church — were both approaching ZZ Top territory with their lengthy neckwarmers. And Brother Brigham’s righthand man, the infamous gunfighter Porter Rockwell<\/a>, would’ve fit right in with the Allman Brothers Band<\/a>. But I guess that kind of glorious hirsuteness went out with polygamy and the coming of statehood.<\/p>\n

If I sound bitter, well, it’s sometimes hard not to be. After all, I’m a nice guy, and I’ve always kept my facial fuzz neat and clean. My beard is a symbol of my individuality and masculinity, and also kind of a family tradition to boot — my father has worn a beard most of my life, as did my uncle Louie, the one who died from ALS. And damn it, I just like how I look with it better than the way I do without it.<\/p>\n

I’ve long comforted myself by rationalizing that the rampant beardism I so often encounter is just a parochial Utah thing, that things are surely different out there beyond the Zion Curtain<\/a>. And you know what? I was right<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A recent study in the Journal of Marketing Communications<\/i> found that men with beards were deemed more credible than those who were clean-shaven. … The researchers say the implications of their findings could extend far beyond advertisements. For instance, male politicians might want to consider not shaving because the “presence of a beard on the face of candidates could boost their charisma, reliability, and above all their expertise as perceived by voters, with positive effects on voting intention.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More credible? Charisma, reliability, and expertise? Now that’s more like it! But perhaps you’re not yet convinced. In that case, consider this chart:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

You’ll have to click on it to blow it up large enough to read; be prepared to scroll, it’s pretty big. And after you’ve clicked and pondered, then tell me you don’t have a new-found respect for my beard. Go on, just tell<\/i> me. Because charts prove everything, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aside from one intensely unhappy week back around 1995 or thereabouts, I have proudly worn a full beard for two decades now. That’s not an easy thing when you live in a community that places a high value on conformity, and where the local ideal of how a respectable male is supposed to look hasn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}