By Josh Gondelman

Copyright gq

It causes me no discomfort to say that I am primarily physically identifiable as a bald guy. I’m a little doughy, sure. Medium height. White fella. Decent legs, if we’re being honest. But first and foremost, I’m noticeably bald. This is not the culturally preferred aesthetic, I’m fine with it. In fact, to prepare for any notable occasion where I might be visually perceived or even photographed–a wedding, a birthday party, the occasional television appearance–I often shave my remaining hair closer to the skin, effectively making myself more bald.
People talk all the time about how our nation is becoming more and more polarized, but nobody is discussing one of the clearest manifestations of this trend: Men can be bald, or they can be hairy, but balding itself has become taboo. What our culture no longer allows for is the middle ground, the classic bald on top, wooly on the sides look that used to feel both common and inevitable for many men. This very publication once called that style the “power donut,” but I think of it as the “horseshoe of truth.” Growing out the hair just on the sides eliminates the mystery of what’s actually possible up top. There was a time when you couldn’t throw a pebble without hitting an openly balding man. But now, in a media environment that rejects the very concept of a shared reality, the horseshoe of truth (H.O.T. if you’re nasty) has faded from the spotlight.
In some ways, drifting toward the extremes of the hirsute to hairless spectrum makes sense. It’s always a little embarrassing getting caught in the middle of a biological process. It’s not embarrassing to be spotted eating. It’s completely mundane to be seen coming out of the restroom. But it’s utterly humiliating for someone to walk in on you as you sit on the toilet. That’s just science.
Not to mention, there are more and more reliable ways than ever to be not-bald if that is your preference. There are pills and tinctures you can order online after visiting virtually with a doctor. But I’m not going there, for the same reason I ignore the gas station pills that vow to turn you into a sexual rhinoceros or whatever. I choose to accept my mammalian shortcomings without staging chemical intervention. Still, hair restoration surgery has improved by Jason-Momoa’s-follicle-length leaps over the past several years. When I was a kid, hair plugs had the pitiable density of a field of freshly planted grass. Now, for the price of a few thousand bucks (according to a search in an incognito tab) and a quick jaunt to Turkey, a self-conscious party can return home looking like Fabio or Dr. J in their respective primes.
We’ve long held a preference for eliminating the middle ground. Michael Jordan iconically embraced a full head of head from a young age. Frank Sinatra was a famous wearer of hairpieces. Our nation’s two foremost labor-crushing, space-tickling overlords take opposite approaches to this issue. Jeff Bezos chose to strip the bandaid off with a razor blade, going full scalp-to-sky. Elon Musk went in the other direction and built levies against his receding hairline. To his credit, those furry bulwarks have held up better than his rockets and self-driving cars. Much like the way the baseball analytics led hitters to three “true outcomes,” our culture has pushed us towards two ends of the hair-having spectrum: Fully bald or entirely fuzzy.
It’s easy to forget that these two antitheses are not our only choices. Baldness is a spectrum, not a binary. There is nuance to be found between the poles, and a valor to those willing to exist within that liminal space. “I am not yet bald, and I may always be balding,” is an acknowledgement that identity is not fixed, it’s ever-changing, and there’s no shame in embodying that truth. To do so is to reject both nostalgia and fatalism in favor of living in the present moment, whatever that looks like. Balding in real time rejects the rigidity of either/or as well as the gluttony of both/and. Living in neither one space nor another isn’t heroic, exactly, but it is honest, transparent, real. This is the promise of the horseshoe of truth. With that in mind, I’d like to salute a few of the men who proudly stake out the middle distance between hairless and hirsute, and the myriad ways they embody the boldness of balding.
Enrico Colantoni (Honarary mention:John Carroll Lynch)
Colantoni and Lynch both belong in the “oh hell yeah, that guy!” character actor hall of fame, and they’re both recognizable thanks in part to their commitment to being good old-fashioned bald guys. There’s something Hackmanesque about their tidy, businesslike hairstyles allowing them to play a broad range of characters. “This is what I’m working with,” say those haircuts, “and I don’t have much else to say about it.”
Larry David
My friend Jason Diamond refers to the Seinfeld co-creator and Curb star as the Power Donut’s “king of kings” but I think there’s something else going on there too. David lets his hair get a littler scragglier than some of his peers, allowing his freak flag (or…freak follicles?) to fly a little more wildly. I have nothing but respect for a fellow bald who’s willing to grow his hair out a little and allow his reverse-bangs to tickle the back of his neck.
When I go more than six weeks without a haircut I look like I’ve been awake for seventy-two hours straight trying to perfect the schematics for a time machine. Larry David, in his hair as in his art, refuses to bend to the caprice of convention when it violates his sense of justice or his sense of self. There is ultimate truth in this man’s horseshoe.
Jason Alexander
It’s no surprise that the actor who played George Costanza (famously based on Larry David) is on this list as well. Alexander sports a traditional H.O.T. except for when he…doesn’t. After rising to prominence as one of our great American bald guys, Alexander pivoted to wearing a semi-permanent hairpiece in the early 2010s. At the time I was crushed. It’s always tough to lose a notable bald guy to death (tragic) or hair (merely unfortunate).
Alexander seems to have gone back to bald recently, and I’m glad to have him on the team once more. Even toggling between a toupee and and raw noggin’ it has its charm—lmost a camp aesthetic, like the bombastic dignity of a diva preparing for a grand performance. It’s honestly kind of fun, as my friend Sam Taggart pointed out on a recent episode of Straightiolab, the podcast he and George Civeris cohost.
There’s no shame in Alexander’s unvarnished appearance, just an added pomp when it’s time to address the public. Still, it’s nice to see him open up the moon roof again. Welcome back, Jason Alexander.
Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton (and possibly even more famously, the late racist Terry Bollea) sports a look that’s bald yet coiffed. If a mullet is “business in front, party in the back,” Reverend Sharpton rocks a dead mall on the street-facing side, and a surprisingly tony function hall in the rear. It’s refreshing to see someone without even hair distribution still make a proactive styling choice. Letting the hair in the back grow out is the gentleman’s ponytail, to use another equine reference point.
Kevin Durant
K.D.’s status as an icon on the court (and Twitter, where he famously has itchy fingers) is approached only by his grace as a balding man. Unlike the front-to-back deforestation of a Larry David, Durant’s hairline has been beset by a classic bald spot. On one hand, his seven-foot stature makes the status of his hair a mystery for us average-heighted plebes. On the other, his physique has landed him on television several nights a week during the NBA season, where cameras capturing him from above clock the night-to-night progress of time’s slow march. While many of his predecessors have opted to fully ditch any stubble the moment male pattern baldness rears its, well, head, Kevin Durant has chosen to go down with the ship—the master of his fate, captain of his soul.
These men–despite their slight stylistic differences–share an increasingly rare aesthetic. Their hairlines defy the mandate to pick a side, the expectation to conform to an external gaze. They have submitted to the mortifying ordeal of being known and made it out the other side alive. Thanks to their individual emergent horseshoes, they are not only standing in their truth, they’re nestled firmly, underneath it. If only we all had their courage.