PicoBlog

It is February and my aunt is visiting my family from out of town. I have always known her to have hair like Carol Kane and a voice to match. When I enter my Grandmother’s house there is the standard din I am used to from an expansive Italian family, and I can’t see over the heads of my countless cousins and uncles. What I can make out from the various concurrent conversations is that my aunts had decided to get matching haircuts. Their effeminate euro-sleaze hairstylist had encouraged them that their 50s were the “optimal time to make a huge change in their lives,” “to embrace true glamour,” and, “to try something different.” Upon climbing the stairs to the kitchen I was met by the high-sheen backs of their heads like two glistening Vidalia onions. They jubilantly turned around to reveal something I had never seen, something that would change the trajectory of my life forever. My aunts had matching bobs. 

The bob haircut, which grew to prominence in the 1920s can be best described as the kind of haircut you’d draw if you were given a box of crayons from the 99 Restaurant and asked to draw hair. A short dome, usually with bangs, that covers the ears and reaches just around the chin. It’s the approximation of a hairstyle, like trying to remember something from a dream, and to me, it is endlessly and unceasingly chic. 

More than that, a bob represents freedom. The flappers who popularized the style wanted to be able to dance and move, the mothers and businesswomen who don the bob (Note: Don the Bob would be an amazing Drag Queen name.) do so for mobility and as an act of convenience. They don’t have time to Dyson Airwrap their hair. They’ve got their little shake-n-go bob and they are ready to grab the day by the shoulders and shake it to death. So what then characterizes the elusive fuck ass bob? And how can one experience a Fuck Ass Bob Summer?

The essence of the fuck ass bob (or FAB as it is sometimes called) is harder to define. It goes beyond the actual aesthetics of the hairstyle, and has a mercurial nature that is entirely hard to pin down (unlike the FAB itself— Kit Kittredge I’m looking at you). There is a joie de vivre to a FAB, it is a way of living— a way of seeing the world differently. The fuck ass bob is intoxicating, an almost primordial desire resting within us all. It washed over my aunts and thousands of brave bob connoisseurs before them, men and women who heard the secret whisper of the bob and answered. There is a FAB for everyone and a lesson to be learned from each and every fuck ass bob.

This is the FAB that started it all. In the grimdark teen drama Euphoria, actress Barbie Ferreira is styled with a blunt mushroom-cut black bob. After a sexual video of her is circulated around the school she is brought into a concerned Principal's office. Principal Hayes correctly ascertains that it was Ferreira’s character, Kat, in the video. To which she responds with indignation that he only identified her because she’s fat. In her aggrievement, she fails to recognize that she is the only person at Euphoria High, and possibly the world at large, to have this rather distinct hairstyle. This scene spurned the phrase “fuck ass bob” and should be sent into space for future generations and intelligent lifeforms to study along with the Tamagotchi, Toaster Strudels, and Toni Collete’s collected oeuvre. 

What to learn from The Bobrie Ferreira: 

The energy of this FAB is one of taking back narratives. It is a reminder that YOU are in control. When someone tells you that you are one thing, you get to decide if that is something you are willing to take on. You get to synthesize your own truth. To be the Bobrie Ferreira you must be strong and wrong. The energy of this FAB is one of denial, of the patent refusal to see the world as it is dictated to you. This bob is Britney Spears sitting down to have her fortune told only to stand up and leave, flatly stating, “No thanks, I choose my own destiny.” Be warned and proceed with caution, when taken to its extreme this is in many ways the flat earther of bobs.

Listen, I truly don’t want to talk about Johnny Depp anymore than you likely want to hear about him. Unless of course, you are one of those people who still wears Invader Zim shirts, in which case you’re probably loving this. In the 2005 remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, costume designer, Gabriella Pescucci took Depp’s wig straight out of the bag and said, “I want to make history,” and that’s exactly what this is. Depp captured a very specific impish joy that feels unincumbered by traditional mores, and I firmly believe that the majority of this character is rooted in his silky FAB. His waxen skin and flat dinosaur teeth romp around queerly throughout the movie with an unfettered and unrelenting silliness. His FAB allows him a certain unique freedom—unconfined and uncontained. Try as he might, without a FAB, Timothée Chalamet will never be able to cross over to Funky Little Dude territory, and will instead remain a ghostly Victorian child in perpetuity. 

What to learn from the Funky Little Dude: 

Ask yourself what feels most authentic to my inner child? If you see your friend across the street do you merely want to wave, or do you want to make a scene? I say run at joy with open arms and flail around unafraid of taking up space. Laugh like a sea witch at the jokes you enjoy and be loud and uncompromising. We spend entirely too much time considering how others may perceive us— we push down parts of ourself, placing a limiter on our own joy and expressiveness. Ask yourself, why would you want to feel less, why would you want to be less? To be a funky little dude is to refuse to shrink. 

When I first saw the image of Julia Roberts for the poster of Mother’s Day, a carrot-top orange bob seemingly set inches in front of her head, I assumed it had to be poorly photoshopped. There was an uncanny valley essence to this wig. Still, as I watched the Gary Marshall film, I realized that they had indeed trapped America’s very own Pretty Woman in a wig unlike anything I had ever seen before. The wig called to me, a siren’s song that I had to answer. So I dug through interview and article far-and-wide trying to deduce the meaning behind this baffling costume choice. 

According to Vulture, the wig is from Helix, the fake movie within a movie from Notting Hill. Like, it is literally the same wig. In the same way the Christmas candle is passed on from hand to hand, one candle regifted 'round the world in just one day, so too is the Mothah Bitch wig. The Mothah Bitch represents lineage, it’s about taking from the past and giving to the future, a cyclical treasure that will reemerge on another much-beloved actress in 5-10 years, my guess is Florence Pugh. 

What to learn from The Mothah Bitch: 

This is about legacy, claim the energy of the universe, become eternal (and not in the MCU kind of way). The things and feelings you are experiencing right now, have been felt before by thousands of others struggling in the same way. And guess what, they figured it out! You are connected to this vast lineage in the same way Roberts is connected to every actress forced into that bobbed-atrocity. This is the FAB ancestry.com, an interconnected network of grace and strength that is already a part of you, you just need to be ready to receive it. 

The last thing the world needs right now is another thinkpiece on the self-mythologizing of Taylor Swift’s career. The Era’s tour is monoculture in a way that we have not seen since Swift’s own 1989 era. I still shudder at the cultural chokehold the misheard phrase “Starbucks Lovers” had during Buzzfeed’s heyday. Incidentally, it was precisely during this time that Swift began to show up to red-carpet events in her very own ode to #Girlboss icon Ana Wintour. Her bob was meant to signify a shift, a change to her persona, a rebirth. Do I think that the power of the bob catapulted her into her imperial era? Do I think the bob is directly responsible for the Bad Blood music video and its untenable #SquadGoal costars? Do I think the bob threw the first brick at stonewall, do I know where the bob was on January 6th? All I can say is, that whenever there is a monumental culture-defining event, the bob is never too far away. 

What we can learn from The Turning a New Page(boy):

Are you ready for change? Are you, like my aunts, ready to try something different? Creating a new era for yourself comes with power. And this is the New Year’s Day of hairstyles, a tipping point. There will always be a time B.F.A.B (Before Fuck Ass Bob) and after. Imagine all that you can become in that after, if only you decide to.

***

There is a reason the bob has permeated culture in such an intense way. There is a reason that this style is both timeless and future-looking. We as a society have so much to learn from the FAB and so much to be thankful for. To many, the fuck ass bob can represent one or all of these lessons: choosing your own path, embracing your silliness, the ability to tap into the past, and the option to start over.

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