The Rise of the Toupees: A Devastating New Hatfish
The hatfish is: happiness. This is the first of many joys.
Forget about the blazing, dystopian nightmare in which we boil together on planet earth, 2025. Rejoice in the knowledge that men can now wear toupees without shame and we will watch — like — and subscribe together as a human family. Oh, yes. We’re in this together.
As we all know, Egypt invented wigs. We should all be aware of this and not have to google a damn thing about it. Eventually, men gave up on full wigs and opted for a lighter version: the toupee. It’s a french word for “top of head” and I refuse to do anymore research on the matter. For an in-depth understanding of the kinds of glue and tape and how this all contributes the overall development of the hair restoration industry, go here.
I’ve nothing against toupees the same as I don’t have anything against baldness in men (or women). But the algorithm has grabbed hold of me in my doomscroll and I begin to feel something beyond the scroll. Is this real-world joy now?
I recognize our need to distract ourselves. But it’s a hard pill to swallow when a man getting hair glued onto his head brings me such joy. 5.2+ million viewers say that I am not alone in this phenomenon.
The world happiness report for 2025 shows Finland as the world’s happiest place for the eighth year running. The United States of America doesn’t even crack the top twenty countries. But we love a toupee video.
I’m not here to shame anyone, certainly not men who finally get their time in the sun, surf, snow, and water with hair that just won’t come off and looks so fuckin’ real. No, enjoy that, guys. I’m so happy for you. Sometimes, if the videos show up on my feed while I’m on my period, I even CRY for the men who wait, like hairless, hungry cats in a shelter, for the lady with ear plugs (the ear decor, not actual plugs to silence the internal crying that these men are trying to fool us into believing is not happening) to goo up the hairpiece and then carefully paste it down on his scalp. I weep on the couch and think about how lucky this man is. I weep on the couch and think about how someone like this warrants 5.2 million views and how we’re still not Finland.
Like I said, I’m not here to shame anyone. I’m just ashamed of everyone. I know there are studies on how to cultivate happiness in your life. The answer’s always the same: Gratitude.
What a slippery slope. Gratitude is. This is an opportunity for weird guru jockeys like Robbins (either one) to slither in and regurgitate (ahem, plagiarize) every single thing you already know is within you. Moreover, ever single thing that has already been identified by the stoics. They pinpoint your failures, label it, and then bathe in the glory that they are right — humans are flawed. They just discovered this and what a time for you to be alive, buying their sixteen-week program.
They are the toupee.
When all the while all you had to do is one thing. Wake up and be grateful for this. Work with whatever you have, and be grateful. Put one step in front of the other and be grateful.
Instead, you clicked on the “more information” link on the 5.2+ million viewed video of a grown man pasting hairs on his head who was, uh, grateful, for opportunity to do this to himself. Naked, unsure cat. He just waits while a twenty-something year old women glues hair onto a perfectly good, perfectly attractive, perfectly round head.
“You can pull, just not too hard,” the next generation of men will be saying to the next generation of women. Neither sex too concerned with our ranking of happiness in the world.
What a country.
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