Broadcaster Daiti Oh Se recently revealed that she had undergone surgery and thought it was “the best decision I ever made” and is now an ambassador for a hair transplant clinic in County Kerry.
He is ready to spread the gospel and bring good news to the desperate hordes of hairless and poor people across the country. While many cooed at his hair replenishment, some were more skeptical. Are the Rose of Tralee hosts yet another victim of the hair transplant military-industrial complex?
Positioning hair restoration as a solution to baldness confirms a deeper problem at the heart of this industry. Baldness is portrayed as a condition that requires treatment.
However, baldness is not a disease. It’s part of a man’s natural experience. Over the past decade or so, hair restoration clinics have seemingly inexorably proliferated across Ireland, perpetuating an unhelpful stigma.
I see a lot of adverts for Hair Restoration and they all follow the same charitable message: “Change your life!”
“I don’t want to be bald anymore!”
“Free yourself from baldness!”
“Does being bald make you look older?”
[ Dangling nose hairs, spiky ear hairs … Why do men sprout hair in weird places as they age? ]
I also found one with a photo of a heartbroken man holding his head in his hands and pleading with society to give him a bone. An Irish hair restoration clinic claims in an advertisement that you can “regain your confidence and lifestyle”, inferring that the balding community is a group of pathetic recluses who are afraid to leave their bedrooms for fear of being judged. There is.
But I’m not sure men actually want the magic pills this industry is so desperately trying to sell. The problem is that we are constantly told that we need it and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you keep telling people there’s something wrong with them, they’ll start believing it. But unearthing the truth amidst this barrage of “lifestyle” management is difficult.
Is acceptance the only real ally for male pattern baldness anxiety?
When I was single, I remember chatting with people I matched with on Tinder. After her perfunctory small talk, she dropped a truth bomb. “Before we go any further, are you actually as bald as you look in your profile picture?” she asked flippantly, launching a grenade across the lines of modern anonymous communication. .
That interaction was an eye-opener for me. Because it happened on a platform that trades on the vulnerability and vanity of our appearance. The epitome of how we perceive beauty. The proliferation of hair restoration clinics, the large number of men hopping on planes to Istanbul for quick (and cheap) transplants, and the way these things are expressed all point to a malignant conviction. Must be changed.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/W6EVS4E5WNG7ZDSMGR5BXLG7YU.jpeg)
Consider how the academic journal RSVP described the Oh Sé procedure. “The RTÉ star is now the clinic’s brand ambassador, raising awareness of the different treatment options available to people suffering from hair loss.”
The expression ‘raising awareness’ is usually used in a charity or disease context, but ‘people suffering from alopecia’ are a minority who are forgotten by health services and are truly experiencing incredible suffering. suggests people. The only line missing here is “For just 1 euro/month you can change a bald man’s life forever” in slow motion as a hairy benevolent donor pats a small bald man on the head. A video is played.
What a condescending place this message comes from! The bald community is not a group that requires intervention. The only awareness in this situation is that these clinics have an opportunity to make money by exploiting men’s vulnerabilities.
Another hair restoration clinic in Ireland aired a TV ad with the following line narrated over inspirational music: “Hair is a natural part of us and essential to our self-image.”
[ Erik ten Hag’s baldness somehow getting the blame for his struggles at Manchester United ]
In this situation, one medical clinic teaches that the way your hair looks essentially affects how you perceive yourself. But hair is not a natural part of me and hundreds of thousands of other Irish men. In fact, the opposite is true. Being hairless is a natural part of who we are and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Whether you like his pranks or not, Oh Se is a role model for middle-aged men. He’s charming, handsome, and all over TV, from his Today show to his interview on Roses every August. Therefore, the reasons he chooses to support are important. This is a rare mistake. Because by jumping on the hair transplant bandwagon, he inadvertently perpetuated the central message in all of this: baldness is a problem that needs to be solved. It is neither acceptable nor loved.
:quality(70):focal(564x564:574x574)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/SYMAHSX63BFWTMU4M4TWMR3BL4.jpeg)
Critics of my argument will suggest that just because restoration was the right solution for Au-Se doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone. But as a brand ambassador, he will inevitably impose the hair transplant industry’s worldview on us. He is in a position of significant power and influence, and his message is reprehensible.
My favorite part of some hair restoration clinics’ PR strategies? Some offer gift certificates. I can imagine giving them to unsuspecting relatives on Christmas morning.
“Happy Christmas, now go and let me solve your desperate head!”
