Hilarious Facts About DTS #1: Hair.

Nothing says “Future Leader” quite like aping the exact look of someone you saw on American Idol, or a Rob Bell video. It is truly inspiring to see, on our fair campus, the trendy look of the culturally insecure reigning supreme in the minds of our young scholars.

The look begins with the haircut, of course. Any Millennial seminarian worth his iPod earbuds wouldn’t be caught dead with carefully parted and combed hair. That’s SO…like, early century. If some curious onlooker were to casually enter a restroom on the first, second, or third floor of Todd, he would instantly notice a row of young seminarians intently gazing into the mirrors, delicately adjusting their bulbous coifs. When the interminable process of preening is complete, the onlooker would notice that the student’s hair projects a sort of deliberately mussed-up effect, as though he had been riding in a convertible at high speeds, facing the rear of the vehicle. This is the not the look he is trying to fix, mind you….it’s the look he wants. It is as though he bounded out of his futon in the morning hours with his hair combed, and immediately began working to rectify the horrifying situation.  

It is not wise for you, the onlooker, to try to save the young seminarian from the embarrassment of appearing in public with this look.  Saying, for example: “Your head looks like a Q-tip that was left in water overnight” would not yield the results for which you might be hoping in your well-intentioned way. Generations of men with reasonable haircuts have come and gone for many thousands of years, but the Millennial Seminarian has committed himself to the Planetoid look, and is unconcerned with history. The fact that the rest of society considers that haircut to be objectively worthy of community ridicule is of little concern to the student. After all, old people are…like, old.

A separate study must be made of the hats occasionally perched atop these fair heads; perhaps next week’s installment can undertake this task. But we would be remiss if we exited the Hairdo study too early: a careful examination of the campus will reveal that there are three categories of hairdo among male members of the seminary:

1. The Q-Tip on the student who also has accessorized his clothing and entire appearance in order to affect  the “Oh, I Just Crawled Out Of Bed And Randomly Threw Together This Ensemble Of Tatters From Old Navy” look. This student is convinced that Millennial ladies prefer young men who spend a large amount of time trying to look as though they spend no time caring about their personal appearance. It is really a study in Orwellian irony.
2. The Q-Tip on the student who failed to visit Old Navy and only has regular clothes….this one now has the unenviable look of a student trying too hard to look “in.” He is generally greeted in the halls and on the campus, but no one is returning his texts or offering ironic comments on his Facebook posts. This is a social faux pas akin to buying the tailored suit without the matching hankie and $75 cufflinks.
3. The reasonable haircut. This typically appears on the heads of older students, professors, and younger non-conformists. It is the ultimate symbol of those who have left The Game, for whatever reason: marriage, children, career, or other semblances of maturity that typically require one to not look asinine. The wearers of this style might also be expected to not update their Facebook profile very frequently, or have any idea what Halo means.

If one’s hair is a badge of generational authenticity, then the Millennial Seminarian will in no way be mistaken for a person of more…um, experienced status. The older seminarian may be forgiven for immediately associating old Kelly LeBrock Pantene commercials with these youthful students of God’s Word (“don’t hate me because I’m beautiful!”), but under no circumstances should that person EVER point out the objective truth shared by the rest of the earth’s inhabitants pertinent to the Q-Tip: that, for the first two years of its ubiquitous run of popularity, most people thought the hairdo was a special education helmet.  

That would be uncharitable.