The way hair and beauty looks are interpreted and disseminated now is different from at any other time in history. Historically speaking, hairstyles have always been loaded with symbolism and personal meaning – usually bearing cultural and/or political significance for a particular demographic.
In the 1960s, the skinhead subculture emerged in the UK as an emblem of working-class solidarity. Across the Atlantic in the same decade, the civil rights movement was gaining traction and the afro fast became a visual marker of Black pride as part of the natural hair movement. From European aristocrats sporting wigs to signal their upper-class status in the 18th century to the religious connotations of dreadlocks for Rastafarians, the reasons behind different hairstyles throughout time have been manifold.
But how have these styles been interpreted and translated in the age of social media? Have the messages lost their potency, or gained a new speed?
Social Strands
With the proliferation of social media over the last 20 years, people have turned to online communities to cultivate their own understanding of hair, and to find their spot in history. Today, an endless scroll of hair and beauty tutorials are freely available, especially on TikTok. “I think it’s adorable how the Tik-Tok community becomes collectively obsessed with something and
