Apparently, there’s now a fashion trend called “lumbersexual.” As the avid fashionistas I know you to be, I’m sure its details and subtleties are already familiar, if not passé. For those as yet unschooled in lumbersexual grooming, here’s a brief summary:

Lumbersexual men have a calculated look with the desire to be (and be seen) as rugged and the heteronormative version of “manly.”

If that isn’t sufficiently clear, here are some inspirational pictures. 

And here’s where you can buy a sling for your axe. 

However, not everyone is thrilled by this rugged, or rather pseudo-rugged, fashion development. Among the aggrieved is a student and blogger named Indi, who looks like this and describes himself, at length, as:

Cisgender maletype, he/him pronouns. Type-2 diabetes, clinical depression… Panromantic pansexual… A multicultural global nomad… Seen a lot of stuff, done a lot of things… Formerly at Monash University, formerly at Lasalle College of the Arts, currently at Deakin University. Former theatre kid wholly sick of the industry… I want to perform or write for the rest of my life, whether it’s music, theatre, comedy, films, TV, voice acting, whatever… I don’t like people that ignore intersectional issues.

Regarding the lumbersexuals’ ersatz burliness and ostentatious facial hair, he says, rather testily, 

Let’s promote traditional aspects of masculinity by pretending it’s harmless! Let’s glorify large beards, because only ‘real men’ have huge amounts of facial hair based on their level of testosterone! Let’s make something seem harmless to give credit to a bunch of cis white men for no reason other than to uphold [a] European beauty standard.

Fads, it turns out, are terribly important and something that people attuned to “intersectional issues” should spend their time seething about: 

This shit is as transparent as the people promoting it. It’s the same as normcore, glorifying behaviours typical of people in white hegemonies. Take this ‘real men’ shit and go elsewhere. Stop trying to make what white men like fashionable, thanks.

Beards, then, are harmful and oppressive. Especially when combined with plaid shirts and skinny jeans. Because they’re “glorifying behaviours typical of people in white hegemonies.” Like this. And no, I’m not entirely sure what normcore is. Though that does seem quite a lot of baggage for a chap of 22 who’s still at university.

Update:

The Guardian’s Zoe Williams once again imparts her infinite wisdom:

I would like to see shops treated a bit more like shoplifters – prosecuted for dishonesty even when it seems petty – and shoplifters treated a bit more like shops.

Yes, I know. Its profundity resists mere human comprehension. The gnomic nugget above is from a piece, the headline of which insists “the world is run by sociopaths,” and in which our moral guru airs her belief that “the successful entrepreneur or innovator will be sociopathic.” This, you’ll remember, is the same Zoe Williams who believes that rich people helping Romanian orphans and funding the distribution of retroviral drugs in Africa is a Very Bad Thing™ because giving money away “creates inequality.” Dear sweet Zoe, who values “moral clarity,” therefore likes to imagine how upscale charity galas, which raise millions for such causes, might be made more amusing and congenial if those doing the giving suffered some hilarious physical injury. 

When not wishing injury on people richer than herself, our high-minded Guardianista spends her afternoons conjuring scenarios reminiscent of the Soviet Union circa the 1920s, in which parents who can no longer afford to send their children to private schools are “whittled out” and ritually humilated on entering the state system. You see, preferring private education (even if you can no longer afford it) is sinful and must be punished. By people like Zoe, whose own education was at Godolphin and Latymer, where the list of extracurricular activities includes visits to Rome and Morocco and an eight-day tour of Barbados, and whose own children, named Thurston and Harper, are no doubt thriving at the local comprehensive.

Oh, and lest we forget, this is the same Zoe Williams whose most famous written line is, or certainly should be,

As for vindictive, ha! Good.

We’re lucky she’s there to show us the way.